age.universe {UsingR}

Best estimate of the age of the universe

Description

For years people have tried to estimate the age of the universe. This data set collects a few estimates starting with lower bounds using estimates for the earth's age.

Usage

data(age.universe)

Format

A data frame with 16 observations on the following 4 variables.

lower

a numeric vector

upper

a numeric vector

year

a numeric vector

source

Short description of source

Details

In the last two decades estimates for the age of the universe have been greatly improved. As of 2013, the best guess is 13.7 billion years with a margin of error of 1 percent. This last estimate is found by WMAP using microwave background radiation. Previous estimates were also based on estimates of Hubble's constant, and dating of old stars.

Source

This data was collected from the following web sites: https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5225, https://case.edu/pubaff/univcomm/2003/1-03/kraussuniverse.html (now off-line), https://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/age.html, http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cutting/ageuniv.htm (now off-line), and https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101age.html.

Examples

data(age.universe)
n <- nrow(age.universe)
x <- 1:n
names(x) = age.universe$year
plot(x,age.universe$upper,ylim=c(0,20))
points(x,age.universe$lower)
with(age.universe,sapply(x,function(i) lines(c(i,i),c(lower[i],upper[i]))))