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ERIC Number: EJ1033522
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014-May
Pages: 2
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0031-921X
EISSN: N/A
Why Was Kelvin's Estimate of the Earth's Age Wrong?
Lovatt, Ian; Syed, M. Qasim
Physics Teacher, v52 n5 p286-287 May 2014
This is a companion to our previous paper in which we give a published example, based primarily on Perry's work, of a graph of ln "y" versus "t" when "y" is an exponential function of "t". This work led us to the idea that Lord Kelvin's (William Thomson's) estimate of the Earth's age was wrong not because he did not account for radioactivity, as is commonly believed, but because he used the wrong model for Earth's heat loss. We feel this idea is worth spreading. To this end (following England et al.), we examine two questions, the first about the radioactivity part and the second about Perry's alternate model for Earth's heat loss.
American Association of Physics Teachers. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740. Tel: 301-209-3300; Fax: 301-209-0845; e-mail: pubs@aapt.org; Web site: http://scitation.aip.org/tpt
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A