Carbon 14 Decay

[DeSwiss]

Laboratories around the globe have confirmed that the rate of radioactive decay—once thought to be a constant and a bedrock of science—is no longer a constant. Something being emitted from the sun is interacting with matter... with the startling potential to dramatically change the nature of the very Earth itself. Exactly what has scientists so on edge is the fact that the natural rate of decay of atomic particles has always been predictable.

news.stanford.edu/news/2010/au­gust/sun-082310.html

[devilnvadies]

how can i explain this in a lecture ...help plzz

[mikrotuber]

@crazy77iii - That was my question, too. I think this process is, as far as we know, indeterministic. We can only say, as a statistical generalization, that half of the atoms in a particular sample will have decayed within the stated period. We can't say for sure when any particular atom will decay. *Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about this!*

[crazy77iii]

@ :18 seconds the narrorator states that the " AT SOME TIME, the unstable nucleus emits a 1- charged Beta Particle...." What determines the "At some time"? WHEN is this TIME? Is it known???????

please respond ASAP, with whatever info or lack thereof you have.... It will be greatly appreciated!!!! Thanks!

[gregrutz]

@crazy77iii The rate of decay which is determined by the Weak Nuclear Force. One of the basic forces of nature.

[jamespiperca]

Bravo.

Note. Tests on organic material with a known age show the dating technique works. For example, you can count the rings of a tree to determine its age and use C14 dating. And there are numerous such examples.

[nightcrawlercyp]

@jamespiperca if you didn't know some enviroment conditions can stop the growing of trees for a long time...

[jamespiperca]

@nightcrawlercyp That sounds absurd. What conditions? If it's not growing it's dead...

[nightcrawlercyp]

@jamespiperca a season with a lot of rains will stop the trees from adding new rings. Also a cold season can bring the trees in a state similar to hibernation . And the proves you said , well many tests were conducted on samples from things recently killed and were found to have from a few thousands of years to even a billion. That is absurd from a technique that is soposed to work. More than that, microorganisms exists in permanence on the dead bodies so in fact,

[sleazybtd]

@nightcrawlercyp In times of extreme cold, tree rings are still produced, but the rings are significantly smaller.

Carbon-14 dating is a tool, and like every tool, it has its limitations. Any idiot can bring a sample to a lab to be carbon-dated, but if he used it in an inappropriate way (contamination or inappropriate samples), then the scientific paper he writes will be laughed at and tore up.

Do you think you're the only one who knows that dating techniques have limitations?

[nightcrawlercyp]

@sleazybtd no, I believe many people choose to ignore them. Because otherwise I believe (and you can only contradicty me by using numbers not words) that you cannot use carbon dating to date something a bilion of years old let along bilions and bilions of years.

[sleazybtd]

@nightcrawlercyp Science is a competitive field. When one scientist writes a paper, other scientists read the paper, and nit-pick it to find every mistake that the writer made, including using carbon dating inappropriately.

By the way, watch the video again. Carbon dating is only good for objects up to 60,000 years.

And by your words, it's obvious that you don't understand how radiometric dating in general, works. Read up on the topic before dismissing it.

[nightcrawlercyp]

@sleazybtd then why it is used to date things that supposed to have lived more than 60.000 years like dinosaurs? and I do understand it: as a c14 degrades it releases radiation.the quantity of c14 that can emit radiation becomes half after about 5700 years. Correct me if I am wrong!

[sleazybtd]

@nightcrawlercyp Looks like you got carbon dating correct.

Carbon dating can't be used to date fossils because there's no carbon left in the fossil when they're found. When you need to date fossils, you use other radiometric dating techniques like uranium-lead, potassium-argon, or any of the dozen or so methods. Those methods have a half life of millions or billions of years. They're work similarly to the carbon-14 method. Normally, several techniques are used to reduce the chances of error.

[nightcrawlercyp]

by your own saying every sample is more or less contaminated, the contamination not depending only on the factor time but a multitude of factors from temperature, umidity, vegetation, winds, and the list goes on and on.

[Thomasl777]

What if the radiation 20,000 years ago were much higher and produced more C14 atoms? What about contamination of the sample?

I am baffled how could a method be called scientifically accurate when there are so many variables?

[Thomasl777]

How can something be "accurately dated" if the method is based on assumptions? The assumption is based on a living organism assimilating 12 C14 for every one trillion C12 atoms that it contains. For simplicity's sake if a leave contained 1 trillion Carbon atoms, in would contain 12 C14. But what if it contained 24 or any other quantity? "it is stated that the percentage of C14 in the atmosphere is constant however why would the assimilation of C14 by living organism follow the same ratio?

[farrier616]

This technology is fairly young. How does one know that this proccess has always gone on at the same exponetial rate?

[xy274]

lol HALF LIFE 2

[EliyahMessageTime]

AHH!

BUT!!!

Now answer the question as to why Carbon 14 has a reset of approx. 11,500 years.....

see 'halfpasthuman' for an answer.

The SUN is about to RESET, and Carbon 14 will be reset then too! Of course, civilization as we know it will end in the process, but oh well. It is cyclical events in the solar system, mainly related to the SUN, and now you know the reason so much sun symbols in religions around the world. It gives us life, AND IT KILLS US OFF.

[gundamnduke0]

its funny that this was posted more than a year n a half ago, n only 7 comments. the future of chemistry is done for....

[YamiMako]

how do you know that 12,4% is 3 half lives??

[greyman000]

One half live is 50%, two are 25%, three are 12.5%, and so on. It might be easier if you thing of it as 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and so on.

[YamiMako]

oh i see, that makes sense. thanks! ^_^

[JonThm]

Environmental sources of radiation screw carbon dates though!

[scerm]

That's pretty kool

[fifalgerian]

thanks a lot buddddd

[SuperfuryanimaL01]

Very clever!!

[Chasichan]

Can I download this somewhere? I would need it for a school report.

[irany4ever]

amazing