Welcome

Dedicated to Dr. Stephen W Hawking



"We are explorers of the universe trapped in a one of its kind dying world looking back into time past and extrapolating into time future while largley oblivious of our own time"
-The Number Theorist

Dear user, this book has been made freely available as a readonline material. Please do no reproduce.
Chapter 1- The beginning

• Introduction
• Introduction...(2)
• Introduction...(3)
• The Big Bang
• The Big Bang...(2)
• The theory
• Epoch of Inflation
• Epoch of Inflato..(2)
• Conclusion

Other Upcoming Chapters

• b -After The Bang
• c -Earth Human's Heaven
• d -Evolution of Life
• e -The Human Being
• f -Evolution of Man; Robotics and Cloning
• g -Alienology
• h -Travel; The past, The present and The Future
• i -Space Colonization and Beyond
• j -The God Factor
• k -The Future Through a looking Glass

Conclusion

Just like the BBT, the IUTs fail to explain some crucial stuff about the creation process. For example:
1. Where does the universe come from? Of course a super hot, extremely dense atom starts to expand and cool forming the galaxies, stars and planets. But where does the atom come from?
2. What drives the formation of the universe from nothing? For once I would forgive Sir Alfred Hoyle for thinking that the BBT is ridiculous. Imagining a Big Bang with only the scientific laws and mathematical equations without external forces is farfetched. And am not talking about the kind of forces in quantum mechanics or general relativity. Even Stephen shows of his feelings of an incomplete theory from his quote in A Brief History of Time: "… What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?"
3. What is the purpose behind the formation of the universe? Why could this perfect design come into existence?
As we race through time to find the beginning of time basing our arguments on only what we see, these are things that we cannot just ignore. Though the whole BBT thing is explored to its limits, it leaves us curious as before. It gives us a good picture of how the universe came to being but it's not complete.

So here we are still on the little blue cute planet, in a wonderful universe looking for the answers of the beginning of time with the fundamental questions still unanswered. Maybe we should continue searching for the answers; maybe we should just let the Holy Book guide us. Or maybe we do not have enough space and time to consider either of these options. Or do we? Maybe in another universe we do? :)

Epoch of Inflato..(2)

Despite the seemingly unnatural descriptions that the IUTs give, they have a lot of backing from their ability to account for some of nature's phenomena. Such include:
Biasness of matter over antimatter during creation period- During the first few seconds of the universe both matter and antimatter were created. If they were exactly the same quantity, they would have annihilated each other resulting to an empty universe. Somehow, by a mechanism not well understood there was creation of matter over antimatter. In 1968, Andrei Sorhakov- the Russian Scientist who invented the Soviet Bomb- explained a number of conditions that would have ended up with excess of matter over antimatter.
1. Creation of baryons (the particles that make up quarks and protons) over antibaryons.
2. Bias creation of baryons over antibaryons. In a supporting experiment, J.H. Christenson found evidence that this procedure. The mechanism behind is however still not known.
3. According to laws of thermal equilibrium excess baryons would have disappeared in the process in what is called memory loss of the system. But since they did not, they must have been absence of thermal equilibrium to retain the excess baryons in the system.
The universe has up to 11 dimensions
Around us we see only 4 dimensions, 3 of space (length, width, height) and 1 of time. Recent observations reveal that our universe could be harboring up to 11 dimensions. As far back as 1919 Kaluza proposed the idea of a 5th dimension of the universe in order to create a unified geometric description of gravity and electromagnetism. Later in 1926, Klein proposed a 6th dimension for compatibility with quantum mechanics. Since the Kaluza-Klein model has been model has been extended to unify the other forces of nature.
1. Existence of parallel universes. Earlier on scientists thought that parallel universes could be existing. Now it's not just a speculation. While attempting to come up with a unified theory of quantum theory and general relativity scientists came upon the superstring theories. Now scientists know that our universe is just one of infinite membranous bubbles. Probably the next bubble is just a few millimeters away but we may never get there because space-time is curved. Scientists hypothesize that other "yous" would exist in infinite other universes. Maybe in one of the parallel universes, the doomsday comet that struck earth 65 million years ago just flew by sparing the gigantic animals. Maybe in another universe Einstein was too lazy to discover anything. Given an infinite number of universes there are all sorts of possibilities. Theory suggests that these universes could be contracting or expanding. And that these bubbles might touch. If the do, the collapse and form one universe. And that, as some physicists now propose is how our world came to being. Not by the Big Bang.

Fig1.4 Parallel universes at the same time
1. The smooth microwave background- Unlike in the BBT where the universe starts from about 10-34m in the IUTs it starts from about 10-12 of a proton. This allows for radiation and current forces of nature to mix and smoothen matter and energy. In the BBT, the fast expansion of the universe predicts uneven CMB radiation. The IUTs however allow for inhomogeneity to form later leading to development of galaxies.

Epoch of Inflation

Epoch of Inflation
Even with the Big Bang Theory well illustrated, it still remains a wonder what happened before 10-43 of a second. And our theory of creation is not complete until it can describe all the way up to and including the beginning. 10-43 second is not the beginning. Even Ed of Ed, Edd, and Eddy knows that. Conditions before 10-43s were however so extreme hat our ordinary laws cannot explain them. Theory suggests that the universe was even hotter and much denser. Astronomers call the period, Inflation period. Several theories called the Inflationary Universe Theories have been proposed attempting to describe it. These theories suggest that in the very young universe forces of nature acted very differently from the way act in the normal space time. The first IUT was proposed by the American scientist Alan Guth in 1990. Since then 50 others have emerged.

In the very early universe conditions with the universe extremely small, it'd require application of quantum theory that is applied in studying subatomic particles. And in the subatomic world understanding behavior or even quantities of matter becomes so difficult that rather than approximating the values we settle for probabilities of given values being correct. In this small world, even the much praised laws of Newton become futile (poor boy, I hope he never learns that). For example when applied to the structure of an atom, it would mean that the electromagnetic force between the nucleus and the electron draws the latter inwards such that the electron collapses! Yet in normal cases electrons maintain steady orbit around the nucleus.

Inflationary universe
According to one inflationary theory, gravity was part of one single force-the Grand Unified Force. This GUF must have been responsible for the expansion of the universe. In theory high energy changes response of matter to force. As the universe expanded and cooled to below 1027K, the forces separated to a mixture of four forces by symmetry breaking producing what is known as the "False Vacuum". This is a vacuum with not zero pressure rather negative pressure. This means that as it expands it releases energy. It also had negative gravity; which rather than being an attractive force was a repulsive force! This repulsive force must have led to expansion of the universe in the earliest time of the Big Bang.

The theory

The Theory
The universe is calculated to have begun 8-20 billion years ago. However the math and physics we have can only account to as far back as 10-43 seconds (plank time) after the bang. Only up to then can we do calculations using the present laws of gravity and quantum physics that exist. This is because from the zeroth to the 10-43rd second requires a quantum law of gravity that is yet to be devised.

At 10-43s the laws of the universe hat we know of became valid. The universe then only 10-33 of a centimeter wide (plank scale) was 1032 degrees hot! Okay. Let me put this straight. Take a second; get a quadrillionth of that, then get a quadrillionth of that, then get a thousandth of that. That's how young the universe was at the moment. If you were put inside molten iron for that amount of time, you'd never notice! Now how big? Imagine a slice of bread divided to a quadrillion pieces, then one of those pieces to a trillion more pieces. That's how big, I mean, how small, it was. That is as small as a quark. A quark is a very small sub subatomic particle that if dropped on your head, would go through your body without touching anything! Now, about the temperature. It was about a billion, billion, and billion, hundred times hotter than molten steel. I may not tell you how they got to these numbers because if I was to summarize it in 10 pages you'd need an unusual love for numbers and the Greek alphabet to get through the first page.

At 10-43 seconds, the universe was filled with radiation and all the four fundamental forces of nature gravity, strong and weak forces and electromagnetic forces- were still one. At 10-34 s the universe expanded 1030 times and cooled to 1027 K. The expansion and cooling continued throughout the life of the universe. In its early stages where it happened by large factors it gave the impression of an explosion. A bang. At this temperature it was cool enough for radiation that filled the universe to form matter. The energy of the photons turned into mass with respect to Einstein's equation e=mc2. This happened by collision of photons forming quarks, antiquarks and leptons.

After 10-4 seconds, quarks combined to form protons, neutrons, antiprotons and antineutrons. As the universe expanded and cooled, creation of mater ceased. By principle, matter formed and their antiparticles annihilated on collision. However by a biased mechanism not fully understood, some particles (one in every million) remained to matter of the universe that we see today. Otherwise all the matter would have disappeared leaving a universe filled with only a remnant of the radiation.

One second later, temperature dropped to 109K. The grand unified force split to the four forces of nature that exist today. After one minute it was cool enough for colliding protons and neutrons to combine and form helium nuclei and 7Lithium. About ¼ of the total nuclei that fused formed Helium.

Nothing much happened until 300,000 years later when temperature dropped 3000K. It was then cool enough for electrons to fuse and form neutral atoms. Thus the universe became transparent to radiation with no more free electrons to scatter photons.

Over 10 billion years since the Big Bang, the universe has expanded by a factor of a thousand causing the temperature of radiation to fall by the same amount. Now the radiation is resting at 3K with a corresponding radiation wavelength in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is one of the greatest strengths of the Big bang theory: because the observed temperature agrees with calculations made 2 decades earlier by the Gamow team and confirmed by Princeton University Physicists.

Another backing of the BBT is the abundance of helium observed in the universe, consistent with the theory. Helium has been observed to make 27% of the matter around us. This is true according to predictions by the BBT which allowed for fusion of ¼ of the protons of the early universe in the first few minutes of the Big Bang.

In the 1960's scientists observed that more quasars and radio galaxies are found in distant galaxies than in nearby ones. Watching the distant is like watching the past. Since most galaxies arte billions of light years away light from them takes billions of years to reach us. And the present images are pictures of billions of years back. Since distant galaxies appear to be more active, it means that the universe has been changing with time.

These support coupled with he observations of receding galaxies , that led to theory itself have made us so confident of the BBT that we can now brag of having the ultimate creation theory.

Moreover, Stephen Hawking has shown that a universe can only be described by the theory of General Relativity if and only if it started as a singularity. Since General Relativity applies for our universe it must have started as a singularity. Thus the Big Bang.

The Big Bang...(2)

Before observations of an expanding universe were made Albert Einstein, while working on his theory of relativity noted that his equations included a surprising constant (the cosmological constant) which if he made zero would imply that his model universe would collapse under its own gravity or expand forever. Therefore, he thought that his equation was wrong and he made the constant a nonzero to create a force that balances gravity's attraction. This he did in order to have a system that agrees with the then known theory of a steady universe. He latter called his action "the biggest blunder of my life". Otherwise we can say that Einstein had discovered that the universe is expanding but was too to believe it himself.

Using the fact that the universe is expanding, a Russian meteorologist and mathematician Alexander Fleming attempted to calculate the time of formation of the universe. This could easily be done using the following formulation:
Time =Distance/Speed but according to Hubble's formula Speed=HD.
Thus T=D/HD=1/H. H= 65km/s/mps
Thus T=1/65divide3times 10power 19=
15 Billion Years.
His work never gained much appreciation until 1927 when Abbe' Georges Lemaitre a Belgian priest and cosmologist made similar calculations. The priest later proposed the Primeval Atom theory: that since the universe was expanding then at some point in the past it was at one place the size of the solar system. Density at this time was so tremendous that even protons and neutrons were touching. He is however thought to have overestimated the effects of gravity. In which case, the universe expands slowly relative to our gravity less universe. Thus in current models we find T to be 3/2 of what he found.

From Georges idea of an extremely dense universe, George Gamow a Russian born American scientist proposed that the universe was also very hot, up to 10^13 K, and consisted of neutrons that decayed into other subatomic particles, protons and electrons. Then some of the protons fused to form helium. In 1948, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman two of Gamow's colleagues went on to propose that the radiation emitted by the early universe can still be seen, but in a different form. They based their arguments on Wien's law. According to Wien's law the wavelength at which a body emits radiation is inversely promotional to its temperature. Thus the early universe radiated most strongly at shorter wavelengths, less than 10-15 m. But as the universe expanded, the radiation wavelength stretched such that they increased to millimeters. Using Wien's equation λ = 3×106
T
And taking wavelength to be 1mm (the wavelength at which the radiation is strongest) the temperature of this emission is found to be 2.726K. Alpher and Herman showed that this radiation should be spread all over the universe.

In 1965, two Bell Telephone Laboratories workers chanced upon the signal while using an antenna that they were using to collect signals from the Echo satellite. They noticed a hiss that seemed to be coming from everywhere no matter which direction the antenna was pointed. They considered all options like pigeon droppings in the antenna and single point emissions like galaxies and stars. Soon they realized that what they had found was the left over heat from the Big Bang. This discovery earned them the 1978 physics Nobel Prize

The Big Bang

Introduction
The history of the Big Bang begins with observations of astronomers around 1911 of galaxies moving away from us. This discovery was made by the study of spectra of stars and galaxies. Each of these bodies that emit electromagnetic radiation has spectra that can be observed when their light is spread to the component wavelengths. White light for example would have all the wavelengths of visible light- from read to violet. Stars, galaxies and other heavenly bodies other hand may have spectra that also includes invisible electromagnetic wavelengths e.g. x-ray and gamma rays. All the same, as space expands galaxies move away from us and wavelengths of their light increases producing a so-called red shift in their electromagnetic spectrum. The opposite of this is a blue shift that would be produced if the galaxies were moving towards us. These occur by the Doppler Effect taught in high school. Doppler Effect is apparent wavelength of source appears to change when there is relative motion between the source and receiver.

It was also observed that galaxies further from the Milky Way move away faster from us than galaxies closer to us. In 1920, Edwin Hubble discovered that the velocity (V) at which a galaxy moves away from our galaxy can be related to their distance from us (D) by V=HD where H is Hubble's constant 65 kilometers per second per megapersec. One Megapersec is 3×1019km. A galaxy that is 1 megapersec away is moving at 65 kilometers per second from us. One that is two megapersecs away is moving at 130km/s and so forth. This gives an impression that our galaxy is at the centre of the universe. However it has been shown that galaxies move away from each other in a similar manner. The universe is expanding.








Fig1.3 Picture of galaxies receding from the Milky Way
With this in mind astronomers hypothesized that at one point in history the universe was such that all the matter, space and time was packed at a small point, called a singularity. The point stared to expand, explosively. The Big Bang!

According to the Big Bang theory, a ball (the size of a proton) of infinite density and coming out of nothing for an unknown reason starts to expand and cool to the present working order that supports life. These extreme conditions led the English astronomer Sir Alfred Hoyle (a big antiBBT) to name it ridiculously, the Big Bang Theory. Unfortunately for him, this theory has become astronomers favorite and, because of its name, very popular. Nowadays you can here it on the lips of junior high school kids or theologians. He however went ahead among other astronomers Herman Bondi and Thomas Gold to propose another different theory in 1948- the Steady State theory- of a universe that has always existed. In their new theory, matter forms from nothing at the rate of a few atoms per cubic mile per year. Their theory had its good moments when it was hailed for explaining formation of elements. According to it new elements are formed when stars explode and spread their atoms which later fuse creating heavier elements-Neuclosynthesis. However it failed to explain to the origin of the large amount of Helium in the universe that makes about 27% of all the matter that exists. Besides it needed an alternative explanation for the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) - page----. Its 2 weaknesses are however the basics by which the BBT is founded. Sir Alfred died in 2001. He never believed the universe ever begun.

The BBT is the most successful creation theory after the Biblical narration and is almost as unanimously accepted as the Darwinian theory of evolution. Hence it must come as a relief to Christians that the BBT supports a universe that started at a time finite in the past. If it didn't it would reduce the chances of a creator to zero percent probability as is the case of the Steady State Theory.

Introduction...(3)

That is why to me describing the beginning is like describing photosynthesis: God is at the background and the full controller of what we see. And whatever one wants to believe should not be based on illogical denial of reality rather than what the numbers say.

As scientists, we take these laws governing our world and use them to hypothesize systems and processes to get scientific theories. In all accepted scientific theories on the origin of the universe. There are no facts that can disprove the existence of an Intelligent Design-the scientific description of God. Because even as we trace the beginning of the universe to billions of years back it is inevitable to consider at some point a "hand" hat works the achievement of this creation.

Even though a scientific theory can be accepted by the science community it is important to remember that these are just theories of a universe that started (if it ever did) at a time past. There are no video captured and/or sound recorded. And even though observations ,calculations and equations may be as good as these we may never be close to the exact description of the beginning in the next hundred years given the present laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity to go by. Therefore, even the extremists of cosmologists will still find a comfort in the book of Genesis chapter 1 for an explanation that is logically flawless.

For a scientific theory to be accepted, it must be able to stand the test of time. A new good theory is never impressive enough to scientists until it can be tested and be applicable not just to one situation but to all related scenarios. The critics look at it naked and give a pass or a fail. And here criticism is not based on people's feelings or blood relations. Rather on the laws of nature.

For instance when I was in sixth grade I made a simple discovery and came up with a very short lived theory. I found out that the hypotenuse of the right angled triangle 3, 4, 5 can be calculated by ½ × longer side + shorter side. I tried to test my discovery. The first right angled triangle that came to mind was 6,8,10. I applied the formula and it worked. I was so amazed by my findings I almost ran around screaming Eureka. But before showing everyone my little manhood, I thought I could try with another triangle. The next triangle that came to mind was 5, 12, 13. My "formula" didn't work this time round. And after running it through several right angled triangles, working in some and not in others, I noted that my equation was only true for triangles of the form n(3,4,5) where n is any real positive number. I recoiled in my chair like a scared dog and started counting the days left to the weekend like any other average school kid!

And as Stephen Hawking puts it in a Brief History of Time: "Any theory is always provisional in the sense that it is a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of the experiment agree with some theory you can never be certain that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of theory."
Despite this fact, the beginning of the universe had such unique conditions that trying to come up with a theory that would hold from time zero to the present has become a vain quest up to and including this moment in the history of science. And I think I will need Hook's Law analogy to put this across. In Hook's Law, force applied to a wire is directly proportional to the extension. This is true for all forces applied to the wire until the force is so much that it produces a permanent stretch. Then the law becomes obsolete on application of more force. Because the behavior of the wire after the yield is determined by a lot including the material of the wire , the temperature ,pressure previous history of the wire and so much more. Trying to come up with the Genesis theory is the same as trying to work out an equation that would hold true for the wire given any amount of force.








Fig1.2 diagram relating force and extension by hooks law.
Now that sounds like science fiction. And science fiction is what cosmology has become as we try to relate the laws of everyday life to the conditions at the beginning of time, to unify them in a single "Theory of Everything". In such conditions where temperature, pressure and density were in the order of billions it doesn't come as a complete surprise that the force of gravity we see its trivial effects everyday garb a whole new meaning.

However we have been able to come up with a theory that holds true for most of the time that the universe ha s bean around. The Big Bang Theory. I first heard of it when I was in high school. It is in those days that I spent a lot of my study time wondering on the possibilities of parallel universes and regions beyond the universe where nothing exists. Not even space. An activity that pulled a lot my grades with its gravity leaving me hanging up there without lots of them!

Introduction...(2)

It is in man's nature not to be comfortable in such a state of curiosity. Not from his earliest history. If he were we wouldn't be driving to work or watching Formula 1 from the luxury of our houses. We would still know that the Earth is flat or the concept of us existing would hardly make any sense. Thus man is always out hunting for knowledge reasons and patterns in the various elements of the universe. Maybe that is the reason that we exist: to look fro the answers. For if we hard all knowledge imprinted in our minds from the beginning of time then life would be an obvious tasteless burger from the pizza hut across the street.

This immanent nature of human's psychology is evident from infancy- before the entity becomes aware of its own existence. And when placed on the floor it will automatically try to reach for the nearest object, like a robot programmed to perform just that operation. Whatever follows helps it to learn more about its surrounding, like an advanced robot would be able to. The property persists throughout man's life as it uses what it learns to modify its environment for comfort, leisure or as in most cases, survival!

Thus in the life of human beings seeking knowledge is inevitable. We have set laboratories all over the planet to find new and better drugs; faster and more economical travel method, etc, etc. We even have a laboratory 24,000 km above the surface the earth for similar studies: the international Space Station. We have sent space probes billions of kilometers from earth with a message to whatever lies beyond.









Fig 1.1 the international space station

The beginning of time is just one of the many questions whose answer we are looking for. It is a subject that has been around since man's own advent in the world. It is one of the few subjects that create common debate grounds for religion, philosophy and science; a feat that is hard for a subject to achieve unless it is controversial, complex and able to accommodate very different almost clashing point of views. Hitherto a universal approach has not been arrived at by the opposing factions but it is worth appreciating the fact that we have come a long way. And as time passes stronger connections are made towards comprehending the fundamentals of origin of this universe.

In science, we rely almost entirely on the facts that are observable, measurable and natural; those that are held by the scientific laws and mathematical equations. Almost always subconsciously science being the basic rule that influences everything known to man; it is the crucial element we apply for any argument or decision making. For example, let's say you are a college student. You have 17 minutes before the next lesson begins. But you haven't taken breakfast or showered yet. You know that it will take you 8 minutes walking fast enough to get to class. And since 9 minutes is not enough to complete both tasks, you have to choose between either. Its winter so if you don't have a bath you won't produce bad odor till much later in the day, or tomorrow. But you had a very light supper last night so your stomach may start rumbling before the middle of the 4 hour lecture. Well, you don't have to be a 3.9 GPA student to figure out what to do here. In this case for instance you have applied mathematics, biology and meteorology!

Another example. An illiterate 6 year old kid. He can easily jump from a small height say a chair to the ground. But if he were on the third or second floor he would never dare. He has never been aught about gravity in school. But subconsciously he knows that his velocity will increase as he falls and when he hits the ground his change in momentum will break every bone in his body. In this case, the kid has applied mathematics and physics with the same equations. Only not paper and, much faster!

As humans we tend to apply science in all our endeavors. We rely in what is real, logical and rational. Maybe that makes it a little harder for the present Christians to perform miracles like Jesus did. Or even believe the Reinhardt Bonkes do their thing on the Sunday morning television. Yet these are the very natural laws that the ultimate employed to govern the universe. Maybe the same that he used to create the universe. Nevertheless I believe that they were created for us. For without them, nothing would be what it is (or is not). They govern every bit of our 4 dimensional space time continuum. Every Sunday morning , every television , every priority of breakfast over shower, every bone we choose not to break, every bit space, every bit of time from now to the future and to the past, all the way to the beginning.

Introduction

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth: and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the earth. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
Gen 1:1-3
The first three verses of the Bible are God's own words (with different versions in different beliefs all boiling down to more or less the same thing) of the Beginning of all space, time and matter of the universe. It has a curious form of simplicity and a perfection that resembles the equation relating matter and energy in Einstein's theory of Relativity, E=mc^2. Such that, almost the entire human race backs on it for explanation of origin. But naturally most of us are left asking the very questions it appears to answer. For example:
- Where did the universe come from
- When did it come to place
- What occurrences led to the present observable universe
- Why did it come to place
In a normal case scenario the last enquiry is left for philosophers and theologians. While the rest are considered not too complicated to be theorized, tested and calculated within the precincts of the laboratory.

Some of us, well, most of us regard all of them to be questions that one should not waste time trying to figure out but issues that had long been addressed in the Bible. Such an argument inclines all the answers to religion. And as Bishop Archer in 1928 calculated using the timeline in the Bible, the universe was created about 6000 years ago. Or more accurately, on the night of 20th October 4004 B.C. By God.

However, as the rest would argue, this is taking the Bible too literally; because it disagrees with some of the natural observations. This view urges a couple of us to a quest to find the truth. A quest that relies on numbers, logic and reality. A quest that is as old as humanity itself. And a quest that has made man who he is, with what is around him. A quest that has credited some the title Scientist.
In our search for the answers and for our usual exploration oriented mind we perform experiments, make observations, do calculations and create a model of our world. This model which can be accounted for by science seems to emerge from a series of patterns, mathematical equations and natural laws. The model is apparently perfect rational and explainable by the Bible in the normal world. Yet when investigated towards the beginning it tends to become parallel to the Biblical explanation. Then it becomes reasonable that the Bible doesn't say it all or it is written in codes that we haven't decoded yet.

From our observations there are things a lot older than all the time narrated in the Bible. For example, archeologists have discovered fossils of plants and animals dating to millions of years back. The youngest fossils of so known dinosaurs date back to 65 millions years back. While the oldest date to as far back as million years ago when they first appeared on earth. Other single celled organisms date to as far back as 3 billion years ago. Another example is blackholes. Blackholes are stars that died after consumption of most of their fuel. Mm-mh! They are not windows to other worlds as is claimed in the cartoons! Just like the sun, the stars produce light by turning their mass into luminous energy. After a long period of time, it uses up its fuel and collapses into a high density and low energy state. This process takes billions of years. And because such dead stars exist they must have been around for quite some time. Like er…billions of years. Unless of course they were born dead! So where does the discrepancy come from?