Few topics have been as contentious among both scientists and laypeople as the age of the Earth. Many scientists are people ...

that Earth was infinitely old. In contrast, ancient Indian scholars, who envisioned a universe that repeatedly expanded and collapsed, estimated the Earth's age to be around 1.97 billion years.

Scientists have calculated the Earth to be 4.54 billion years old, with an uncertainty of 50 million years on either side. But how did they arrive at that number? Philosophers have debated the ...