Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
receive respectful attention . . . but it is also known that his bril-
liantly original mind has not always submitted patiently to the
task of assimilating the work of others by the process of read-
ing'. The correspondence continued in this vein for over a
month. Arthur and Bob, on their summer holidays, were on the
edge of their seats with the excitement of it all, for not only did
they become familiar with all the arguments, they also got to
know all the big names in science at that time - William Ramsay,
Ernest Rutherford, Frederick Soddy and Robert Strutt (whom
Kelvin referred to as Mr. Strutt to make sure that no-one
mistook him for his more illustrious father Lord Rayleigh). Once
again they were learning physics without realising it, and enjoy-
ing every minute of it. To read of these famous people
discussing their science in this manner through the pages
of
The Times
was a revelation to the boys; they felt they were
watching history unfold before their very eyes; they felt
'involved'. No wonder they both decided to study physics at
University.
Lord Kelvin was by no means the first person to try and date the
age of the Earth. With insatiable curiosity Man had been trying
for centuries to discover her carefully guarded secret. In 1650 it
was widely accepted that, as stated in the Bible, God had creat-
ed the World (and the heavens, then considered part of the
World) in six days. So James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh
in Ireland and a well known biblical scholar, decided to try and
calculate not only the year in which God (the Christian God) had
created the World, but also in which month, and on what day
of the week. He worked it out by adding up the ages of all the
important people mentioned in the Bible who had lived
since the time of Adam, the first person created by God, and
established that the World was created four thousand and
four years before the birth of Christ, on the evening of the
