Is it possible that the age of the earth is younger than most experts think?

It is only recently that a minimum age for the Earth has been established, mostly from rocks returned to Earth from the Moon by Apollo astronauts and by an automated sample return probe sent by the old Soviet Union about 1970. All six successful Apollo landings returned kilograms of rocks from six different regions on the Moon. In addition, hundreds of meteorites are available for testing, some believed to come from Mars, some from the Moon and others from comets and asteroids that never coalesced into planets. On top of that Earth rocks known to be very old have been tested by the thousand. This gives a minimum age for the Solar System and therefore the Earth.

The usual methods of testing truly ancient rocks use two different uranium isotopes to two different isotopes of lead. These can be combined in a technique called the lead-lead isochron which can be used as an internal check. Typically the same rock is also tested by the decay of thorium to a third isotope of lead at the same time. Other techniques include samarium-rubidium, potassium-argon and a dozen others. Carbon 14 is not used on rocks despite some claims. Most of this testing is now done by a glorified mass spectrometer called a SHRIMP, Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe. There are five of these in this city where they were invented, though one is no longer used

The age usually quoted for the Earth is 4.54 billion years. What the usual quotations leave out is the +/- 0.05 billion years, which is 50 million years. This is because all measurements, scientific or not, are subject to error. Even carpenters say "Measure twice, cut once". Those scientists who are involved in measuring anything from the amount of ash in coal to the age of a star are aware of this and there is a branch of mathematics devoted to this called metrology. Even those measuring ash in coal do it in duplicate, and if one result is too far from another they test again. Averaged results giving a minimum age for the Earth are taken from the mean of dozens or hundreds of measurements with a mathematical estimate of error and a calculation of the probability of being correct too.

It is true that the rotation of the Earth on it's axis is slowing, this is because of the interaction of the tides with the Moon. This transfers energy to the Moon, which is moving into a higher orbit as a result at the current rate of about 3.82 centimeters per year (not inches as claimed by some young Earth creationists) per year. This is a result of laser measurement from reflectors left on the surface of the Moon by Apollo astronauts. This was still being done as late as 2005.

The rotation of the Earth is slowing by about 1.7 milliseconds per century, so 2,000 years ago the day was about 0.034 seconds shorter, neglecting other effects caused by massive earthquakes such as the one that recently caused the Japan tsunami, polar wander, precession and so forth. Working back four billion years that gives a first pass estimate of a day being 4 to 5 hours long.

This says nothing about the length of a year. However it is proposed that because of gravitational interactions among the planets, mostly caused by Jupiter , the outer planets such as Uranus and Neptune have moved further from the Sun while the inner planets have stayed in pretty much the same orbits since the Late Heavy Bombardment which ceased about 3.8 billion years ago. This would mean that the length of a year has stayed much the same for 3.8 billion years, which is far before any layering of ice and rock.

Every indication is that the Earth and Sun do orbit a black hole at the centre of the Galaxy. But if the Earth had ever come close enough for time to be affected to the degree you suggest, it would have been torn from it's orbit around the Sun and the Solar System, including the Sun would have eventually been shredded by the black hole.

I know next to nothing of Bill Nye, but I have known about Ken Ham for about 21 years. He isn't very credible. See second source.

The problem with getting near a black hole close enough to have any time dilation effects, is also close enough for planets to get ripped out of their orbits. So because we have planets, we didn't get anywhere near a black hole.

Interesting thought though.

Oh and we use meteorites for age of Earth calculations as the Earth's crust has been in flux since it's formation. We can't really tell from Earth rocks how long the planet has been around as the rocks themselves are pretty "recent".

Lately we've also been determining the age of the Sun through Helioseismic dating. Dates for the formation of Earth after that come pretty close.

Well the world's oldest fossil, a fossil of bacteria is estimated to be around 3.5-3.6 billion years old, and such an organism's couldn't exist without an earth, also the earth and moon have the same age rock (approx. 4.5 billion years old). These were done using carbon dating and by determining the half life of carbon-14, and that's for living things, for things such as rock, we use radioactive dating to determine the half life of radioactive isotopes in said rock to determine the age. And just to say I respect your openness to science, which I think all people should.

The Earth is believed to be 4.55 BILLION years old with a mrgin of error of just 50 million years!

Your estimates for error are far too large and continuing advances in astronomy are showing the projection to be more and more accurate!

Your mention if ice shows why you are so wrong!

The Earth was a ball of molten lava for a billion years or more. Water did not exist on it for several billion years so ice had no part to play. You obviously have no idea how the age of the Earth is calculated!

, but can we be off by a 100-200 million years?

- Yes, but that is 1 1/2 to 2 %, not a big deal.

I do believe God created the universe and everything in it

- That is entirely possible, now comes the proof, of which there is none.

200 million years off wouldn't be a big difference. You are talking about 4.5 billion years to 4.3 billion years. And yes, this margin of error is very possible. Scientists are constantly adjusting the estimated age of the earth as new techniques and information becomes available.

And let's just for a moment say that a god or advanced being terraformed earth's surface useing materials from a planet 1 billion years old. He did it 100000 years ago.

Now when science dates and digs they get the age of the material used off some other planet.

To illustrate how fallible this technology is .

Let me quote to you the tecalote canyon experiment my school conducted in 1969.

We took a piece of petrified wood and used a Flint rock to chip it into a crude bowl.

We took it to a notable science institution in 1970 after we let the petrified wood bowl sit in a stream just 1 year.

The bowl was dated to be 60 thousand years old. Yup that's right a 1 year old bowl got dated as 60 thousand years old by a prominent San Diego research center

Very, very, very possible. In fact, most scientific evidence points to an age of the earth closer to thousands rather than billions of years old. The vids below do a great job providing some of that evidence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc5GzeoA84I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr8Az3QQZdI

200 million years is a small percentage of 4.5 billion.

No. It could be older than we estimate, but not younger based on the evidence.