After I read that the C14 method is only good for up to 60,000 years I began to wonder why exactly? Is there something else derived that formula on the hsw.com page to give you a 60,000 year maximum or is it just in the half life of the C14 itself?
When you get old enough you just have to quit dating.
60,000 year old dating 14? talk about May-December romances!
After 60,000 years, there simply isn’t a high enough concentration of C14 to get an accurate date.
Is there any formula that explains this, or would that be opening a can of worms?
The fundamental limit of any measurement is when what you are measuring becomes comparable to the noise level of the system. I think the limit in carbon dating is that the radiation from the residual carbon 14 has fallen so low that it is no longer possible to distinguish it from the background radiation.
The half life of Carbon 14 is 5730 years with a thirty year inherent uncertainty. With a sample which is ten times that old, the amount of carbon 14 remaining would have less than one one thousandth of its original concentration. A sample five thousand years older than that would vary from the first sample by only one ten thousandth of the emission level of the first sample.
Contamination of carbon samples from environment sources is also a problem. That likelihood increases with age, and the amount of contamination needed to overwhelm the information inherent in the sample decreases as well.
Tris
It’s simple.
X/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2
Start with the original sample of Carbon 14. 60,000 years is approximately 10 half-lives of Carbon 14. So after the first half-life (5700 years), divide the sample in two. Another 5700 years go by, divide the result in two. And so on and so on. Of course, a half-life is not absolute… it’s just the point where a particle or atom has a 50/50 chance of deteriorating. So after going through enough half-lives, you’re left with a small enough amount where a slight discrepancy in deterioration will seriously skew the results.
Example: Say you start off with a trillion sample particles of Carbon 14. After ten half-lives, you’ll wind up with less than one-tenth of one percent of that… a percentage which would easily deteriorate randomly on its own, skewing the “half the particles” estimate.
Ah yes, good show. Thanks buds.
I hate you, Trisk. But with love.
or… Amount remaining after a number of years=(original amount)(.5)^(half-life/time it’s existed)*
*this term may be replaced by (number of half-lives)