The Globe and Mail - 13.09.2019

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THEANNUALSALE

STARTSTODAY

T

he Battle of the Plains of Abraham, also

known as the Battle of Quebec, was a deci-

sive battle in the Seven Years’ War – which

was fought in Europe, India and North

America – and in Canada’s creation. While France

focused on the fight in Europe, Britain attacked

French colonies overseas. James Wolfe was ap-

pointed general of the British assault against the

fortress city of Quebec. After a series of failed at-

tempts to take the city, Wolfe and 4,500 soldiers

travelled up the St. Lawrence River under the cover

of night to land on a plot owned by a farmer

named Abraham Martin, for whom the battle is

named. The British army spanned the plain with a

formation that was about one kilometre long and

two flanks deep. The French army, led by General

Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, was the same size as its

opponent, but was largely made up of militia and

Indigenous warriors. Both generals died in the

hour-long battle that saw the British win the city.

The French never regained the fortress and, a year

later, Montreal surrendered to the British. With the

1763 Treaty of Paris, Britain had officially won New

France.STEFANIE MAROTTA

SEPT.13,

THEBATTLEOFTHEPLAINS

OFABRAHAMBEGINS

This1797engravingisbasedonasketchmadebyHerveySmyth,oneofGeneralJamesWolfe’saides-de-camp

duringtheBattleofQuebec.GeneralWolfediedduringthehour-longBattleofthePlainsofAbraham,

asdidhisFrenchcounterpart,GeneralLouis-JosephdeMontcalm.LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA

A2 O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| FRIDAY,SEPTEMBER13,

MOMENTINTIME

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[COLUMNISTS]

DENISE

BALKISSOON

OPINION

KATE

TAYLOR

OPINION

PARISA

MAHBOUBI

OPINION

The universe is looking younger

every day, it seems.

New calculations suggest the

universe could be a couple billion

years younger than scientists

now estimate, and even younger

than suggested by two other cal-

culations published this year that

trimmed hundreds of millions of

years from the age of the cosmos.

The huge swings in scientists’

estimates – even this new calcula-

tion could be off by billions of

years – reflect different approach-

es to the tricky problem of figur-

ing the universe’s real age.

“We have large uncertainty for

how the stars are moving in the

galaxy,” said Inh Jee, of the Max

Planck Institute in Germany, lead

author of the study in the journal

Science.

Scientists estimate the age of

the universe by using the move-

ment of stars to measure how fast

it is expanding. If the universe is

expanding faster, that means it

got to its current size more quick-

ly, and therefore must be relative-

ly younger.

The expansion rate, called the

Hubble Constant, is one of the

most important numbers in cos-

mology. A larger Hubble Con-

stant makes for a faster-moving –

and younger – universe.

The generally accepted age of

the universe is 13.7 billion years,

based on a Hubble Constant of

70.

But Dr. Jee’s team came up

with a Hubble Constant of 82.4,

which would put the age of the

universe at around 11.4 billion

years.

Dr. Jee used a concept called

gravitational lensing – where

gravity warps light and makes far

away objects look closer. They re-

ly on a special type of that effect

called time delay lensing, using

the changing brightness of dis-

tant objects to gather informa-

tion for their calculations.

But Dr. Jee’s approach is only

one of a few new ones that have

led to different numbers in recent

years, reopening a simmering as-

tronomical debate of the 1990s

that had been seemingly settled.

In 2013, a team of European sci-

entists looked at leftover radi-

ation from the Big Bang and pro-

nounced the expansion rate a

slower 67.

Earlier this year, Nobel Prize-

winning astrophysicist Adam

Riess of the Space Telescope Sci-

ence Institute used NASA’s super-

telescope and came up with a

number of 74. And another team

earlier this year came up with

73.3.

Dr. Jee and outside experts had

big caveats for her number. She

used only two gravitational lens-

es, which were all that were avail-

able, and so her margin of error is

so large that it’s possible the uni-

verse could be older than calcu-

lated, not dramatically younger.

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb,

who wasn’t part of the study, said

it is an interesting and unique

way to calculate the universe’s

expansion rate, but the large er-

ror margins limits its effective-

ness until more information can

be gathered.

“It is difficult to be certain of

your conclusions if you use a rul-

er that you don’t fully under-

stand,” Prof. Loeb said in an e-

mail.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SETHBORENSTEINWASHINGTON

ThisimagefromtheEuropeanSpaceAgencyshowsgalaxiesinthe

HubbleUltraDeepField2012,animprovedversionoftheHubbleUltra

DeepFieldimage.Scientistsestimatetheageoftheuniversebyusing

themovementofstarstomeasurethespeedofexpansion.

NASA, ESA, R. ELLIS (CALTECH), HUDF 2012 TEAM /ASSOCIATED PRESS

Universecouldbetwobillionyearsyounger

thanpreviouslythought,studysuggests

The expansion rate,

called the Hubble

Constant, is one of the

most important

numbers in cosmology.

A larger Hubble

Constant makes for a

faster-moving – and

younger – universe.