Determine how long ago it had a given mass

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Question: Thinking about this from a different point of view, if we know the half-life of a ra-dioactive material and it's current mass, we can determine how long ago it had a given mass. For example, if the half life is 3 years and its current mass is lg, then it was 4g six years ago. This is how carbon dating works.

Carbon is in all organic material and it comes is several forms. Carbon-12 (6 protons and 6 neutrons in the nucleus) is very stable, however Carbon-14 (6 protons and 8 neutrons in the nucleus) is unstable with a half-life of rougly 5700 years. The proportion of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12 in living organic matter is the same as the atmosphere (something that has fairly been constant for the last 50000 years or so). When organic matter dies the Carbon-12 will remain, but the Carbon-14 will begin to decay. Thus, knowing the half-life of Carbon-14 and measuring the current proportion of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12, we can estimate the time of death. Very clever! Imagine for example we have a discovered an ancient paper parchment and after testing we discover that the ratio of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12 is 80% that of living matter. Give an estimate for the the age of the parchment.

Reference no: EM133761694

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