Bocaj2000 said:
With that said, I don't know if science can be trusted. What was fact a hundred years ago is now seen as naive hypotheses. Atomic theory used to be a joke, and even then the model of an atom became outdated within a few years. In physics, there are particles that make up protons and neutrons. From what we ?know? they are composed of quarks. It?s interesting, but I?ve never seen atoms, let alone quarks. And even if they do exist, how do we have a measurement of their mass? I don't know if I can trust if the speed of light is 300,000,000 meters per second. I don't see how it is possible for anyone to know that.
The idea of dinosaurs is also ridiculous. How can they date fossils? How do we know how accurate carbon dating is? Three million years is a long time and provides a large chance of error. The way dinosaurs look has changed a lot also. What was fact ten years ago is now outdated. Our knowledge of dinosaurs is changing at a steady rate. Theory that will never be fact is constantly changing and will always be accepted by the scientific community as well as the public.
/rant
I have quoted in the hope to get your attention and so I can respond as thoroughly as possible. This isn't a fire post, it's a attempt to answer all your questions, then if you have more, to answer them as best I can. If you're interested try and survive the wall of text.
To start, everything within science is a theory, no good scientist will call something 100% certain fact, each theory and opposing theory has it's own supporting evidence (albeit in some cases very far fetched), then we have Ocams (Okams?) Razor, which says for two theories about the same thing the simplest one is more probably and to be accepted.
Atomic physics is very difficult, it borderlines the quantum barrier (which for all intensive purposes is like having your head crushed in a vice whilst being forced to watch barbie and have someone explain the rules of cricket all at once). Protons and Neutrons (both referred to as Nucleons) are said made up of two things, Leptons and Quarks, one having two of one and one of the third and the other vise versa. Proof of this is, honestly, beyond my expertise. All I know is they use very special scopes that use x-rays and genuinely spend millions of pounds on equipment to isolate 1 atom and cool it to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero.
The measurement of mass isn't so difficult. The combination of a mass spectrometer and maths does this, A mass spectrometer fires ionised (meaning positively charged) atoms and molecules via electo-magnetic fields at certain speeds based upon their weight, the atom then passes through a magnetic field, the heavier the substance the slower it moves and the more it will turn whilst passing through the magnetic field, lighter substances move faster and turn less. The impact is recorded on a detector and computer (now-a-days) and each impact is classed according to mass and charge.
This is where it can become more complicated (as to why, not the concepts), this is done for each element they found the mean average of mass for each one (as each element is made up of things called a isotopes, these have varying numbers of neutrons whilst retaining the same number of protons). They found that Carbon-12 is the most stable and simple element isotope to take relative mass measurements of. Now Carbon-12 is made up of 12 nucleons, 6 protons and 6 neutrons. Hydrogen is made up of 1 Proton and thus has approximately 1/12th the mass of carbon, which, was considered to be the mass of all nucleons for a few years. I can explain further developments if you wish.
Speed of light is complicated, when you look at it off first principles it's nice and Newtonian and relativity easy, but, because of Einstein, we have relativity making the maths a whole lot harder. We know that the electromagnetic spectrum goes from Radio wave -> Microwave -> Infrared -> Visible Light -> Ultraviolet -> X-Ray -> Gamma Rays, so it's producing these at one point and detecting them at another, we know the distance and the time, the speed, well velocity, is a calculation. Most recently this was done with lasers bouncing off the moon.
Dating fossils is all about radioactive decay, everything is radio active, being radio active it has what's called a "Half Life", the amount of time taken for half the isotopes to expel their unstable energy leaving you with half your sample. carbon dating is based off Carbon-14, which is a uncommon but still rather abundant element mixed in with carbon-12 that make up our bodies. I'm not going to pry any further into this bit, because I could easily be wrong and it's to late to check hyperphyics. However generally speaking Carbon dating is 95% accurate, meaning in 10 years the readings will be up to half a year out, and in 100 Million years, you're looking at up to 5 Million years out.
Yes science is ever evolving, with better equipment we can take more accurate measurements, with more powerful computers we can run more simulations and get even more numbers, and we can calculate larger equations faster giving answers faster. There are minds out there with unbelievable ideas that no-one else has yet to think of, they go on to University and are prized pHd. students.
If I've not explained something or you want to know more, PM me, I'll help if I can, or in some cases, point you in the right direction to find out
