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Kelvin started to advance his arguments under the title ''“Note on Certain Points in the Theory of Heat”'' first in 1844 in ''Cambridge Mathematical Journal''. After clarifying some of Fourier’s mathematics related to the conduction of heat and the dissipation of energy, he presented the upper boundary for the age of the Earth in his 1863 classic paper ''On the Secular Cooling of the Earth'' as '''98 millions of years'''.<ref name="OnSecularCooling">{{cite web |title= On the Secular Cooling of the Earth |author=W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) |publisher= Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh |year=1864 (Read 1862) |volume= XXIII |pages= 167-169 |url= http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_secular_cooling_of_the_earth.html |aaccessdate=June 14, 2015}}</ref> The figure was based i.a. on following assumptions and considerations:

Kelvin started to advance his arguments under the title ''“Note on Certain Points in the Theory of Heat”'' first in 1844 in ''Cambridge Mathematical Journal''. After clarifying some of Fourier’s mathematics related to the conduction of heat and the dissipation of energy, he presented the upper boundary for the age of the Earth in his 1863 classic paper ''On the Secular Cooling of the Earth'' as '''98 millions of years'''.<ref name="OnSecularCooling">{{cite web |title= On the Secular Cooling of the Earth |author=W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) |publisher= Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh |year=1864 (Read 1862) |volume= XXIII |pages= 167-169 |url= http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_secular_cooling_of_the_earth.html |aaccessdate=June 14, 2015}}</ref> The figure was based i.a. on following assumptions and considerations:

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! style="font-size:120%; background:lightyellow; text-align:center; padding:5px 0;" | On the Kelvin's calculations  

! style="font-size:120%; background:lightblue; text-align:center; padding:5px 0;" | On the Kelvin's calculations  

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| style="padding:15px;" | ''I have sometimes been asked by friends interested in geology to criticise Lord Kelvin's calculation of the probable age of the earth. I have usually said that it is hopeless to expect that Lord Kelvin should have made an error in calculation.''

| style="padding:15px;" | ''I have sometimes been asked by friends interested in geology to criticise Lord Kelvin's calculation of the probable age of the earth. I have usually said that it is hopeless to expect that Lord Kelvin should have made an error in calculation.''

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* The ‘celebrated’ '''Poisson’s hypothesis''', that the present underground heat of Earth is due to a passage, at some former period, of the Solar system through hotter stellar regions, would not serve uniformitarians and evolutionists right, since it either grants only short time periods with moderate temperature on earth’s surface or, if the transition from hot region to cold region is shifted further back, it leads to extreme temperatures that must have destroyed all animal and vegetable life.     

* The ‘celebrated’ '''Poisson’s hypothesis''', that the present underground heat of Earth is due to a passage, at some former period, of the Solar system through hotter stellar regions, would not serve uniformitarians and evolutionists right, since it either grants only short time periods with moderate temperature on earth’s surface or, if the transition from hot region to cold region is shifted further back in time, it leads to extreme temperatures that must have destroyed all animal and vegetable life.     

* The '''Leibnitz’s theory''', which simply supposes the earth to have been at one time an incandescent liquid, without explaining how it got into that state, is the best for view of the geologists who require the longest periods,  

* The '''Leibnitz’s theory''', which simply supposes the earth to have been at one time an incandescent liquid, without explaining how it got into that state, is the best for view of the geologists who require the longest periods,  

* The initial temperature of molten blob to be 7000°F or 3888°C, respectively, corresponding to a high estimate of generally assumed temperature of melting rock. Later Kelvin explained that he could take lower value as more probable, but was most anxious not to underestimate the age of the earth based on the very meager information then available.<ref name="KelvinNature1895"/>

* The initial temperature of molten blob to be 7000°F or 3888°C, respectively, corresponding to a high estimate of generally assumed temperature of melting rock. Later Kelvin explained that he could take lower value as more probable, but was most anxious not to underestimate the age of the earth based on the very meager information then available.<ref name="KelvinNature1895"/>

* The measurements of underground temperatures near Edinburgh served as basis for the estimated “general increase of temperature in the Earth downwards” alias mean geothermal gradient of 1/50th of a degree Fahrenheit per foot (~ ca 36°C/km)

* The measurements of underground temperatures near Edinburgh served as basis for the estimated “general increase of temperature in the Earth downwards” alias mean geothermal gradient of 1/50th of a degree Fahrenheit per foot (~ ca 36°C/km)

After taking into account the estimated uncertainties in thermal gradient and thermal conductivity, Kelvin broadened an upper limit for the age of the Earth to interval between 20 and 400 millions of years (20 - 400 Ma). In a later paper, based on experimental results performed by Carl Barus (who found out that that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1100°C and 1170°C and is thoroughly liquid at 1300°C)<ref name="KelvinNature1895">{{cite journal |title=On the Age of the Earth |author= Lord Kelvin |journal= Nature (reprint in SA)|date= January 3, 1895 |pages= 334-337 |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lord-kelvin-on-the-age-of-the-earth/ |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Carl Barus (Phil. Mag., 1893, first half year, pp. 186, 187, 301-305) that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1,100° C. and 1,170° and is thoroughly liquid at 1,300°.}}</ref>, he modified the value for supposed initial molten rock temperature to 1200°C<ref name="Richter"/>, thus by the end of the 1800s narrowed down the interval to 20 ~ 40Ma<ref name="chemeu">{{cite web |title=William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin |publisher=chemeurope.com |url=http://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/William_Thomson%2C_1st_Baron_Kelvin.html |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Thomson ultimately settled on an estimate that the Earth was 20-40 million years old }}</ref>, with personal preference for the lower value which is also the most quoted one.<ref>{{cite book |title= The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth  |author= Cherry Lewis  |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 2012 |pages= 39 |isbn= 978-11076-59599 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=vU1yZQ03Kz0C }}</ref><ref name="West"/>

After taking into account the estimated uncertainties in thermal gradient and thermal conductivity, Kelvin broadened an upper limit for the age of the Earth to interval between 20 and 400 millions of years (20 ~ 400 Ma). In a later paper, based on experimental results performed by Carl Barus (who found out that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1100°C and 1170°C and is thoroughly liquid at 1300°C)<ref name="KelvinNature1895">{{cite journal |title=On the Age of the Earth |author= Lord Kelvin |journal= Nature (reprint in SA)|date= January 3, 1895 |pages= 334-337 |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lord-kelvin-on-the-age-of-the-earth/ |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Carl Barus (Phil. Mag., 1893, first half year, pp. 186, 187, 301-305) that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1,100° C. and 1,170° and is thoroughly liquid at 1,300°.}}</ref>, he modified the value for supposed initial molten rock temperature to 1200°C<ref name="Richter"/>, thus by the end of the 1800s narrowed down the interval to 20 ~ 40Ma<ref name="chemeu">{{cite web |title=William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin |publisher=chemeurope.com |url=http://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/William_Thomson%2C_1st_Baron_Kelvin.html |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Thomson ultimately settled on an estimate that the Earth was 20-40 million years old }}</ref>, with personal preference for the lower value which is also the most quoted one.<ref>{{cite book |title= The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth  |author= Cherry Lewis  |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 2012 |pages= 39 |isbn= 978-11076-59599 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=vU1yZQ03Kz0C }}</ref><ref name="West"/>

Many scientists liked these values, since they appeared to be consistent with calculations made by [[Hermann von Helmholtz]], who in 1854 estimated the age of sun to be between 20 and 40 million years,<ref name="ingv"/><ref>{{cite web |title= Trial balloons and the age of the earth |author= Tas Walker |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref> but for both evolutionists in biology as well as uniformitarians in geology they were distastefully low.<ref>{{cite web |title= Lord Kelvin revisited on the young age of the earth |author= John Woodmorappe |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref>   

Many scientists liked these values, since they appeared to be consistent with calculations made by [[Hermann von Helmholtz]], who in 1854 estimated the age of sun to be between 20 and 40 million years,<ref name="ingv"/><ref>{{cite web |title= Trial balloons and the age of the earth |author= Tas Walker |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref> but for both evolutionists in biology as well as uniformitarians in geology they were distastefully low.<ref name="KelvinRevisited">{{cite web |title= Lord Kelvin revisited on the young age of the earth |author= John Woodmorappe |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref>   

More recent discoveries of radioactivity and mantle convection explain why the assumptions Helmholtz and Kelvin made resulted in dates that are much lower than current uniformitarian estimates.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Lord Kelvin had completely demolished all opposition.<ref name="West"/> He made uniformitarian geological community to accept that the age of the earth must be finite and that estimating the age by quantitative reasoning instead of supporting steady-state theory with [[Horror of a Divine Foot|philosophical bias]] should be crucial part of the geological endeavor. Even ‘Darwin’s bulldog’ and [[T. H. Huxley|musketeer of Darwinism Huxley]], who previously attacked Kelvin by making indirect allusions about ''“the first passer-by who fancies that our house is not so well built as it might be”'', ventured to suggest in front of the Geological society of London that ''“limitation of the period during which living beings have inhabited this planet to one, two, or three hundred million years, may be admitted, without a complete revolution in geological speculation.”''<ref name="KelvinOnDynamics"/> But T.C. Chamberlin, head of the Department of Geology at the [[University of Chicago]], was not prepared to concede defeat. While defending his faith in long-ages, he speculated without any observational basis whatever that there might yet be discovered new sources of energy that would allow more time than Kelvin had calculated.<ref>{{cite book |title=Earth |author= Frank Press, Raymond Siever |publisher=W. H. Freeman |edition=4 |year=1986 |pages=40 |isbn=978-0716717430 |url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Earth-Frank-Press/dp/0716717433}}</ref> Thus, the quest for the age of the earth as a subjective, arbitrary and erratic pursuit, was set for an fascinating turn.<ref name="West"/> This came in 1896, when Radioactivity was discovered by Henri Becquerel and when in 1903 Pierre Curie and Albert Laborde demonstrated that radioactive decay releases heat. Before long, several people argued that this source of heat was great enough to overturn Kelvin’s conclusion about the boundary for the age of the earth. Among them was Ernest Rutherford, who in 1904 suggested, in the Royal Institution, that ''“Lord Kelvin had limited the Age of the Earth, ‘provided no new source of heat was discovered.’ That prophetic utterance refers to what we are considering tonight, radium!”'' Later, Rutherford often repeated his tale of thinking on his feet in front of the “old bird” Kelvin who “beamed” at him. This episode and pleasing form of the anecdote, boosted by the eminence of its author, who was considered the father of nuclear theory, provided a ready vehicle for mythmaking and uncritical acceptance of proposition that because the discovery of radioactive heat undermined an assumption behind Kelvin’s calculation, it also undermined his conclusion.<ref name="PerryKelvinCritique"/> As the half-life of radium's dominant isotope is 1600 yr, heat given out by radium obviously could not be the wanted missing energy. Nevertheless, later assumptions of equilibrium in decay series of uranium and thorium allowed to consider heat sources with half-lives in gigayears (Ga; 1 Ga = 10⁹ years).

The 1911 edition of the [[Encyclopedia Britannica]] discussed dates up to 500 million years.<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica, pp 650-651.</ref>

The 1911 edition of the [[Encyclopedia Britannica]] discussed dates up to 500 million years.<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica, pp 650-651.</ref>

By about 1930, J. H. Jeans was arguing for an age of the Earth of around two billion years.<ref>Universal History of the World, p.76.</ref>

As a matter of fact, it is freely acknowledged that radioactive heat sources within the earth do not account for its present internal temperatures if the earth had really existed for 4.5 Ga. The statements such as ''"Thanks to Madame Curie, the inexhaustible energies of the atom of the globe … are potentially available to geological speculation"'' and ''"Kelvin overthrown"''<ref name="KelvinRevisited"/> are logically incorrect; Kelvin's conclusion would be undermined by that discovery only if incorporation of the Earth's radioactive heat into his calculations produced a substantially different age limits for the earth. 

 

The general conclusion is that, even if Kelvin had included a reasonable radiogenic heat production in his thermal calculations, he would still have found grounds for arguing that the age limit of the earth was of the order of 10⁸ years and his estimate would have been virtually unaffected.<ref name="Richter"/>

=== The Scientific Dogma of 4.5 billion years ===

=== The Scientific Dogma of 4.5 billion years ===