A New Calculation Explains the Mechanish Behind Carbon Dating

Number 854 #1, January 23, 2008 by Phil Schewe
http://www.aip.org/pnu/2008/split/854-1.html

A New Calculation Explains the Mechanish Behind Carbon Dating

In terms of the way the masses of mesons changes as they travel
through an atomic nucleus. Mesons (particles such as pions,
containing a quark and an antiquark) are thought to mediate the
nuclear force between two nuclei. Radiocarbon dating began in 1949
when Willard Libby said that the amount of carbon-14 (the radioactive
cousin of carbon-12) left in an object (such as a fossil tree) could
provide an estimate of how old the object was.

The thinking was that the organism, while it was alive, would
constantly ingest enough of the rare C-14 to replace those nuclei
that were decaying into N-14 (the other products being an electron
and a neutrino). But as soon as the organism died, the ratio of
C-14/C-12 would begin to drop exponentially since the C-14 was no
longer being replaced. Measuring the ratio in terms of radioactive
half-lifes would provide a good estimate of the fossil's age. This
method has been used by archeologists ever since to measure the age
of things, at least those things that had been alive.

A big questions presented itself: if the radioactive half-life of
C-11 is 20 minutes, and that of O-14 is 1 minute, and that of O-15 is
2 minutes, and that of N-13 is 10 minutes, why is the life-time of
C-14 some 3 billion minutes (5730 years)? This is what Jeremy Holt
and his colleagues at Stony Brook, TRIUMF (the accelerator facility
in Vancouver), and the University of Idaho have set out to determine.

Holt says that the anomalously long C-14 half-life has been a mystery
to theorists for half a century. An earlier theory, called Brown-Rho
scaling (named for Gerry Brown and Mannque Rho, advanced in 1991),
suggested that the masses of most mesons decrease uniformly when
(insofar as they carry the nuclear force operating inside nuclei)
they travel through dense nuclear material (see figure at
http://www.aip.org/png/2008/294.htm ). Holt
(jeholt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, 631-632-9843) and his fellow
authors bring things up to date by accounting, with fair accuracy,
for the observed long C-14 lifetime. (Holt et al., Physical Review
Letters)
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: 60 Minute Question : Saturns Rings
    ... > clarification about carbon dating. ... difference is in the neutrons--C-12 has six, C-13 has seven, and C-14 ... The C-14 can still decay once inside the organism, ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Carbon-14 fallacy in dating
    ... >> Here is a disproof of the carbon-14 dating methodology, given by Rabbi ... >> oxygen to form carbon dioxide which is absorbed by living organisms. ... >> lose more C-14 isotopes. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Carbon-14 fallacy in dating
    ... > Here is a disproof of the carbon-14 dating methodology, ... > oxygen to form carbon dioxide which is absorbed by living organisms. ... > dioxide and the C-14 decays by emitting beta particles to N-14. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Carbon-14 fallacy in dating
    ... Nitrogen 14 and Carbon 12 in the atmosphere. ... constant ratio of C-14 and C-12 is established in the lifetime of each ... organic remains are dated by comparing the ratio of C-14 to C-12. ... of cosmic-ray action.) ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Carbon-14 fallacy in dating
    ... Nitrogen 14 and Carbon 12 in the atmosphere. ... constant ratio of C-14 and C-12 is established in the lifetime of each ... organic remains are dated by comparing the ratio of C-14 to C-12. ... of cosmic-ray action.) ...
    (talk.origins)
Quantcast