The Scientific American blog entry Who knew the Bible could predict the size of the universe? led me to the source of some astonishing calculations, something I should have thought of myself.
As you may know, biblical literalists claim that the universe is just over 6000 years old. They get this figure from a calculation Bishop Ussher made in the seventeenth century. Through painstaking research of the various begats in the bible, Bishop Ussher determined that his god created the Earth on October 23, 4004 BC. And before you ask, yes there are living, breathing people who still believe this, and they’ve been known to attend that monument to ignorance, the Creation Museum. But I digress.
In the article Biblically Compact Cosmology, Russell Seitz uses the advanced mathematical calculation D=2R as well as the value of the speed of light to determine that the universe is only 12,022 light-years across. I’ve double checked his calculations, and he’s right. Seitz then goes on to point out that based upon biblical calculations, stars average only 1 billion miles apart, and that makes Star Trek like voyages possible and practical.
I do think he missed something about the practicality of voyages to the stars, though. Stars would be extremely bright but incredibly tiny objects, the closest of which would be just outside the orbit of Saturn. Any planets orbiting those stars would be smaller than a spec of dust. So much for interstellar voyages. Who could possibly want to travel to a planet that small? It also makes SETI a waste of time because nothing could live on a planet that size. Damn you Bishop Ussher and your infallible calculations. You’ve dashed the dreams of SF fans everywhere.
Stumble it!