What is the carbon-14 dating equation?

Answer 1

#(5730/-0.693)ln(N_t/N_0)#

General formula for time #t# used in Carbon-14 dating is #(5730/-0.693)ln(N_t/N_0)#.

A fossil is 11460 years old if it contains, say, 25% more carbon-14 than the living sample (because it contains one-fourth as much carbon, it is 5730*2=11460 years old).

As in the above example #(N_t/N_0=0.25)# and #ln0.25=-1.386#

#t=(5730/-0.693)*(-1.386)=5730*2=11460# years.

Sign up to view the whole answer

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Sign up with email

Answer 2

Hunter Arthur

This is the equation for dating carbon-14: $N(t) = N_0 \times e^{-\lambda t}$ Where: - $N(t)$ is the amount of carbon-14 left at time $t$ . - $N_0$ is the initial amount of carbon-14. - $\lambda$ is the carbon-14 decay constant. - $t$ is the amount of time in years that has passed since the organism's death.

Sign up to view the whole answer

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Sign up with email

Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.