Carbon Dating

[Riya 14B-2]

How exactly do scientists use half-life information to carbon date? What does the physical process look like?

Thanks :)

[Ethan Mai 1D]

Hello! I don't think that this topic was exactly discussed in class, but I do know that carbon dating is the decay of carbon-14 to nitrogen-14. I am not sure about what kind of order reaction this is, but I do know that the half life of carbon-14 is about 5730 years. Scientists would measure the ratio of carbon-14 to nitrogen-14 in a sample, helping to determine the original mass of carbon-14 in the sample. Based on this information, they would find the ratio of final to initial carbon-14, and then do the log based 0.5 of that ratio to determine how much the carbon-14 sample had been "halved." Finally, it would be multiplied by 5730 years to determine the age of the sample. I am not exactly an expert on this topic, but I hope this helps!