carbon dating carbon 14

Why is Carbon-14 used for carbon dating instead of other radioactive isotopes?

If the short half life of carbon 14 makes it inaccurate to date artifacts that are older than 50000 years and other radioactive isotopes have longer half lives, why do scientists not use these other radioactive isotopes such as potassium-40 and uranium-235 to date an artifact?

All living substances are “organic” and contain carbon. They all have a fixed ratio of C-12 and C-14. When the substance dies, the amount of C-14 present decays at a known rate. So it is possible to calculate the age of death by observing how much C-14 is still present.

Other radioactive isotopoes do not play a role in life forms as carbon does.

Carbon 14 Decay

carbon 14 dating fossils

Why is carbon-14 dating not used for dating dinosaur bones/fossils?

Please just facts on why it cannot be used for dating dinosaur bones/fossils.

Two reasons:

1. As others have said, carbon dating can only go back so far. The half-life of carbon-14 is about 5,700 years, which makes it only accurate for dating objects to about 60,000 years old. Anything older than that has too little carbon-14 left to get an accurate reading.

2. Carbon dating only works on once-living tissue. (It is based on the fact that living things take on carbon atoms from the atmosphere while they are alive, but stop taking on new carbon atoms when they die … whereupon the carbon-14 decays away at a known rate.) Fossils are not once-living tissue. Fossils are not bones. Fossils are made of the rock that fills in the impressions left by bones that have decayed away.

For these reasons, we use other forms of radiometric dating (not carbon dating) for fossils and rocks.

14. Carbon Dating 1 . Fossils . Radiometric Dating . Nitrogen . Uranium . [DVD 7, 39:43-49:43]

carbon dating flaws

Is the method of carbon dating flawed?

From what I understand, it makes the assumption that the ratio of 12C and 14C in the atmosphere has been constant since about 30000years after the earth formed. But in fact this ratio is not constant. Is my understanding just plain wrong?

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No.

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No such assumption is made. Firstly, the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere prior to about 50,000 years ago is irrelevant to carbon-dating, seeing as any specimens would contain too little of the stuff for it to be accurately assessable. That has to do with the length of the half-life of C-14.

Secondly, it’s not assumed the amount of atmospheric C-14 over the last fifty thousand years has been constant. It’s known to have fluctuated, and those fluctuations are taken into account, and have been for the last five decades.

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Largely, yes. It sounds as if you may have been relying on mis-information peddled by people who know nothing much about carbon-dating; eg. creative young Earth creationists in their various guises.

Radiometric Dating Flaws (Potassium-Argon)

carbon 14 dating

A relative says that carbon-14 dating of human fossils is flawed. How are fossils dated?

Science is the backbone of my beliefs, but my relative says that carbon-14 dating is flawed. What is the gist of the carbon-14 dating technique? I’m already familiar with the nuclear interactions that cause carbon-14 to be radioactive. I’m more interested in the actual dating process and what the ‘thing’ is that is dated in fossil imprints, for example.

Carbon dating works by measuring the ratio of Carbon-12 (C12) versus Carbon-14 (C14).

Carbon-14 is produced in the high atmosphere by the interaction of Nitrogen with high energy solar wind (or the neutrons within the solar wind). This C14 interacts same as C12 within the environment, thus when it combines with Oxygen the resulting CO2 is taken up by plants and stored in their tissues. The concentration of C14 is the same in the organism as it is in the atmosphere. When the plant dies the C14 decays at a KNOWN rate back into Nitrogen.

There are many pitfalls associated with Carbon dating and it is NOT a singular use dating model that can date anything you wish. It is only utilized to date ORGANIC material, thus no rocks (including fossils) can be dated using Carbon dating.

There is also the reservoir effect that is essentially the build-up of non-atmospheric Carbon within an animal, this will provide incorrect ages. The reservoir effect is observed and compensated for in any organism that didn’t derive its Carbon from the atmosphere, thus Carbon dating is essentially useless in marine animals.

Re: Young earth creationists and Carbon-14 “dating” of diamonds

dating carbon 14

Can carbon-14 dating be used to measure the age of stone walls and tablets of ancient civilizations?

I need to know this for physics. I know carbon 14 dating can be used to measure the age of human and animal remains, but stone objects i’m not sure about. A little explanation would be great.

Carbon dating works becuase we can calculate the decay of carbon 14 in organic matter. Carbon 14 is produced in reactions in the upper atmosphere, and stays at relatively constant levels. This carbon 14 acts just like normal carbon (except it is radioactive of course!) and is absorbed into the body. When someone dies the carbon 14 is no longer replenished, and the radioactivity will decay exponentially towards zero.

Since a stone wall is unlikely to be able to absorb carbon 14 you wont be able to date its age using this technique.

PHS-120 Chapter 16_3 Carbon 14 Dating and Nuclear Fission

carbon 14 dating problems

Need help with Carbon-14 dating problem.?

Old wood has 12 counts per minutes.
New wood has 768 counts per minute.
If half life of carbon-14 is 5730 year, what is the age of the old wood.

Please explain and break it down for me.
Many thanks!

If the count would have been 768/2=384 then the wood would have been one half-life or 5730 years old.

But the factor between the two counts is not two, but 768/12=64=2^6.

So the old wood has an age of 6 half-lives, that is 6*5730 = 34,380 years old.

Nuclear physics (2)

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Sims 2 Dating How do I ask them home?

My guy wants to ask his date back home? But when I go to their menu it doesn’t give me the option to.

Its usually under the ask option while on a date and comes up while you’re on a community lot while on a date. I think you need a car, but you might not need one.

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radiometric dating carbon 14

Hovind Debate v. Callahan (theistic evolution): Carbon 14

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dating the gospels

How do we know that the gospels weren’t corrupted by paul since he pre-dated the gospels?

Since the gospels were after paul, couldn’t they easily have borrowed from his writings?

Wow. Not up on the Book of Acts? Not good with geography, maybe?

Paul was only in Jerusalem twice after his conversion to Christianity, both times for just days. The rest of his life he was preaching on the road far from Jerusalem up until the point of his arrest.

Matthew (aka Levi) was in Jerusalem, presumably his Gospel was written there.

Mark (aka John Mark, so it is believed) was with Barnabas traveling far in the opposite direction from Paul. Now, given the primitive nature of his Gospel, it may have been written while on the road, but, he was on the road with Barnabas because Paul wouldn’t have him, not trusting that Mark was steady enough to do the work, but with his uncle Barnabas, John Mark seems to have done just fine. Maybe he found Paul a bit intense, and intimidating– but we don’t know for sure, except that Paul was antagonistic towards John Mark.
Doubtful that Paul would have been much impressed with Mark’s simple Gospel, with his education and in depth writing style. Doubt he could have left it in that “sad” condition, if he had the opportunity to change it. It seems likely that Paul never had the opportunity.

The Apostle John (the Beloved), writer of the fourth of the New Testament Gospels , was in Jerusalem as well, and his interaction with Paul was as limited as the first two Gospel writers, since as mentioned, Paul only had the 2 brief visits to Jerusalem, and was promptly spirited out of it after his arrest within just days to Caesarea, where he was kept prisoner for more than 2 years, and was transported from there to Rome, and held in custody 2 more years in Rome until he was executed there.

John the Beloved outlived just about everybody else, so it appears; was arrested at some point most when he was likely already aged, probably after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., and died while in exile on the Isle of Patmos— where he did write the Revelation, but was his Gospel also written there? We don’t know. If it was, though, Paul was long dead by that time.

That just leaves Luke, author of the third of the New Testament Gospels. Now, we know Luke traveled with Paul, that’s for certain, and scribed for Paul, very likely, especially in Paul’s later years. It is clear from the book of Acts and from Paul’s epistles, that Paul’s eyesight was going dim pretty steadily.

Luke was an adept writer, and while it’s possible Luke MAY have written his own gospel at some point while he was traveling with Paul, it’s much more likely, at least IMHO, that he wrote it even BEFORE Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem.

The reason I believe this is so, is that Luke obviously had significant access to the 12 Apostles in Jerusalem, and many of the other disciples, including Mary, Jesus’ mother and James, the Lord’s brother, and many other of the eyewitnesses to Christ’s life and deeds, while they were still living. He gives far more detail than the other Gospels of Christ’s ENTIRE life.

Luke took up with Paul and Silas on their journeys, and it seems he may also have been transported to Rome with Paul (possibly even voluntarily accompanied him to Rome), and more than likely he even died with Paul in Rome as well.

What all this means is that of the Gospel writers, Matthew and John the Beloved probably only met Paul twice, and very briefly, after his conversion— IF they met him then.

Before his conversion, I’m sure they all stayed as far out of rampaging “Saul’s” way— as was far as possible, anyway, and “Saul” certainly wasn’t interested in “playing editor” for the apostle’s stories of Christ during that time prior to his own conversion, just eliminating them—-and it doesn’t appear that he had much opporturnity to edit them later either.

You need another scapegoat.

Dating the Gospels Too Early

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