Well, b/c I'm really tired of reading stuff for school, I'm gonna take a shot at some math here, let's see how this works out:

The diameter of the earth is roughly 12,742 Km, so the radius would be about 6,371 Km
To make life easier, we'll pretend the earth is a flat disc of the same radius, which gives us a surface area of approximately 127.5 M Km^2 facing the direction of orbit.
Hydrogen has an atomic weight of 1.00794 g/mol. So that gives us 1.00794/6.02 E-23 = 1.673 E-24 grams/atom.
I'll accept 1 atom/cm^3 as the density of mass in "empty" space.
So let me see, if we rate our surface area in cm I get 127.5 M Km^2 = 1.275E18 cm^2. That means that for every cm the earth moves ahead we encounter approximately 1.275E18 * 1.673E-24 = 2.133E-6 grams of mass.
The speed of earth orbit is 29.763 Km/s which is 29.763 E5 cm/s
Ignoring the effect of our orbital curve (for simplicity) I calculate that we encounter 29.763 E5 * 2.133 E-6 = 6.348 grams/second.
Now, assuming that our collision with these hydrogen atoms is perfectly inelastic, we'll use this equation:

Our variables are:
m1 = mass of hydrogen hit per second = 6.348 grams = .006348 Kg
v1 = relative velocity of that hydrogen = 0 km/s (we'll it averages out to that)
m2 = mass of the earth = 5.9736 E24 Kg
v2 = velocity of the earth = 29.763 Km/s
Plug it all in and we get:
Vf = 29.763 Km/s....which is just the same as v2.
What this tells us is that the difference between vf and v2 is so small that my TI-92+ doesn't track it. Clearly another approach is in order. I'll get back to you.

Ok, I'm back with more math!

Well, I know this is incredibly sloppy, but the only way I can get a change largest enough for my calculator to track is to increase the time span we allow for m1 (the mass of hydrogen).
The above post was trying to calculate the effect on the earth's speed of one second's worth of hydrogen impact. Whatever it is, its too small for me to calculate, so I decided to try for a longer time span, basically by multiplying m1. I tried for a day's worth of hydrogen impact, then a years, then a centuries and so on. All results still truncated.
However! When I finally got up 1 Billion years worth of hydrogen impacts, I got a number I could track. If we assume the speed of the earth and the density of hydrogen remained constant, over a billion years we would encounter approximately 2.002 E14 Kg of hydrogen.
If we plug THAT number in for m1, we get a Vf of 29.762999999003 Km/s which 9.97 E-10 Km/s slower than the original v2.

Now, of course it would take calculus (and one serious computer) to actually compute all this properly, since the rate of impact changes based on orbital speed. But, none-the-less, generously pretending my calculations here are almost in the neighborhood of vaguely good guesses, over the next 100 Billion years the earth's orbital speed will slow down less than 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of its current speed due to impacts with hydrogen atoms in space.

Now, my math is full of estimation, rounding, and assumptions, and I'm sure there are other factors at play than just hydrogen impacts. But since there aren't any other calculations in this thread, this exercise has made me feel somewhat confident that hydrogen impacts in space is not a limiting factor on the age of the earth.

I welcome anyone who wants to check all the math for mistakes; I only worked this through once, so if you find some careless errors that change the conclusions, please let us know.

That’s because it’s per second. Scientific notation doesn’t even go high enough to multiply 5-6x10 to the positive 9th (years)x 31 556 926 (seconds)x 6.348 grams.
(Not that this is even a complete formula to calculate how much drag is exerted, we don't know if hydrogen is a constant over that periode. the sun shrinks 5 feet a day. Hell the earth would be inside the sun at it's present trajectory in refrence to how large the sun would have been that long ago.

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See the second post for how it all worked out in the end (when seconds were exchanged for billions of years). As rounded as the numbers are, I think we can safely say that hydrogen "drag" is not a factor significantly limiting the age of the Earth's orbit.

As far as the shrinking of the sun goes,
1) Do you have a source for the 5 feet/day stat?
and
2) What evidence is there that the change in size is constant enough to be extrapolated backwards billions of years?

That depends. The way an atom of an element "disappears" is through a nuclear reaction, and then it becomes another element or isotope, depending on the element and reaction. Until the advent of the atomic age, nuclear reactions only occurred (in any significant rate or frequency to cause such massive changes in mass) on a sun. A nuclear reaction is the way new elements are made from other elements. Isotopes of an element can decay into another isotope, but is still the same element and differs only by it’s number of neutrons. For the most part (except for some kinetic effects) it behaves the same way chemically. The decay of an isotope does happen on Earth quite often and naturally. I am not really sure what you mean here, but if we are discussing evolution, then it would be best to stay on Earth.
Since all this you are describing (I think...) is the atomic mechanical forces, the atomic particles about which you are speaking exist in equilibrium, thus there is no disintegration. For arguments sake and considering we are only taking into account Newtonian mechanics, to what would these atomic particles disintegrate? In other words, where did the mass go? If you are speaking of isotopic decay, then we still have that element and it went nowhere. If you are speaking about a parent element that is radioactive, it decayed into another isotope and/or a lighter element.
Are you speaking about the density as one that is homogeneous or is this an average density of a heterogeneous dispersion of hydrogen? Secondly, if this density you quote is 1 atom/cc, do you think one atom occupies all the volume of that cubic centimeter when you are asking us to determine the drag on something the size of a grape? I'm not quite sure what you mean.
Scientific notation can go as high as you want it to go, just like numbers can go as high as you like.
And that drag is on something the size of a grape? I'm not too clear on what you are saying.
If we are still on Earth, unless there is a nuclear reaction, these atoms of elements will not decay into nothing; rather they decay into an isotope. The atom is still there. If we are speaking about radioactive elements, then they will decay into an isotope or a lighter element and that atom is still there. I could use some clarification on what you mean here.
They are, unless there were a significant amount of nuclear reactions that occurred and if we are still on Earth so some clarification would help me understand.
The heavier elements will decay to another isotope – same element, unless the parent element is radioactive to begin with. If it is radioactive to begin with and depending on the element, you will get another isotope, or another element (of lower atomic number) and isotope. So, this natural decay will only produce elements of lighter elements. True, there may be some evidence that the rate of decay of a radioactive element changes over millennia, but we are still only speaking about elements that start out as radioactive. But I'm not sure about which elements or situations you are describing.
Fusion and fission occur on the sun. On Earth, 27 of those elements are man made and many of them only exist for a few milliseconds, at best. When an element is man made, it is made out of other elements (fusion) under specific nuclear reaction conditions. Fission will not occur spontaneously on Earth. Of the naturally occurring decay on Earth, the decay will produce another isotope (non-radioactive and radioactive parent element) or another lighter element (fission from a radioactive parent element), so I'm a bit confused about what your assertion means.
Yes, it is.
But carbon atoms used by life date back farther.

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Something’s not right, after billions and billions of years of hydrogen bombardment the earth would be a gases planet of hydrogen like Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. Thousands of years seems to fit better if we didn‘t already have this stuff burned into our brains and were figuring it out ourselves.

We need the doc on this one, with interference fringes and variations in hydrogen density the formula would change each time constant and only be assumed after 5 or 6.
Well, we used hydrogen as an assumed constant, why not do the same.
Oh, and I was wrong on the 5 feet a day, it’s 5 feet per hour: Articles / Impact / The Sun is Shrinking - Institute for Creation Research
I usual go by memory of many years ago, I don’t like searching because of discrepancies. Now that I question today’s science I’m not able to check it anymore (Homer Simpson syndrome and all.).

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No, see, that was the point of doing the calculations.
What we found was that the influence of a single atom of hydrogen per cubic centimeter is negligible when compared with the mass of the earth, even over a hundred billion years. The density of hydrogen in space would have to be several orders of magnitude greater to be a true limitation on the age of our orbit.

It is possible that our orbit has only existed for thousands of years, but the effect of hydrogen atoms in space is not a factor contributing to that conclusion.

Oh, come on. That's a technical subtlety. We didn't evolve from chimpanzees, but we still evolved from something which looked a hell of a lot like a chimpanzee. If you understand what evolution is about, there's no harm in saying "we evolved from chimpanzees" instead of "we evolved from something which looked like a chimpanzee but in fact was slightly different and is the ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees". It is certainly much less of a problem than thinking that the world is only a few thousands years old.

Secondly, everyone should remember that Hank should not be considered a serious debater.

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Client: In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!
Tailor: But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world, and look at my trousers.
(Beckett)

It isn't really that trivial a distinction, and it is a common misconception, usually used by creationists to make evolution sound silly; 'see, you're saying that that is your ancestor over there in the cage!'. So I do think it's worth making the point that there was common ancestor between human and other apes that was neither human, nor any of the extant apes. We diverged somewhere between 5 and 10 million yeas ago, and there is a fairly lengthy series of distinct species along the hominid line before the emergence of H. sapiens. This is probably true of the Pan line as well. To say otherwise would imply that evolution somehow stopped for the Pan lineage after ours diverged from it.

I do agree with Clerk, though; there is a distinction that should be made between discussions of science and theology. Both are valid, but they should not be confused. Most non-scientists, when discussing evolution and creationism are not really asking or desiring an accurate description of how we came to be, but are instead asking about their place in the world and their realtionship to the things that are larger than them, be it god or nature; feeling that one came about esentially by accident may be uncomfortable for most. For my part, though, I do find it to be satisfying on many levels to think of myself as part of a great family that encompasses all of life, or at least all of life on this planet. I don't begrudge the chances that could have come out differently along the way, since after all, if I hadn't chanced to be born, then I wouldn't have minded.

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Ahhh, not quite, Einstein.

Proton-proton fusion

To many variables, unknowns, assumptions and flawed argument. Even the doc is probably laughing at us more then an astrophysicists would.…
And yet common sense tells us that 1 cubic centimeter multiplied by a billion is close to one atmosphere (We can change the formula around.). The earth wouldn’t make it at a “suitable pace for life” more then a dozen millennia or so…
Were missing much indeed. The very idea of billions and billions of years coasting with forces acting against her and life only able to exist at close tempo of existing balances wouldn’t need celestial mechanics to figure out, we would laugh at the very concept if we were not purposely blinded by smoke & mirror science.
Darwinism was one of many 1960's anti-establishment movements, I was there. Trust me, these people have no wisdoms to give to man.

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"Common sense" is only a useful guide at scales approaching those you experience in everyday life (and even then can be misleading). For astonomical or atomic scales (and the above deals with both), it's perfectly useless. That's why we have physics. You know, common sense says that a light object should fall more slowly, and it took experimental observation to prove it wrong. Why don't you point out some specific flaw in those calculations, rather than dismissing them with vague accusations?

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"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love"
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