BTW love your thorough and easy to understand history of C14and descriptions! I had a question about your reply to a comment from a viewer about having to assume C14 to be constant for millions of years. You mentioned it hasn't been constant but we assume it at this level for the problems you were working with. I understand that there would not be enough parent isotope to actually be able to plug into an equation after 50,000-70,000 yrs but are you saying that C14 has fluctuated prior to that time frame? I am still learning about this and am very interested to get the latest information available.
Not hundreds of millions of years, the half-life of carbon is relatively short, 5730 years, therefore it can only used to date objects that have been dead for not more than about 70,000 years. And of course it has not always been constant, but at this level we make those assumption to simplify the problems. Does that help?
BTW love your thorough and easy to understand history of C14and descriptions! I had a question about your reply to a comment from a viewer about having to assume C14 to be constant for millions of years. You mentioned it hasn't been constant but we assume it at this level for the problems you were working with. I understand that there would not be enough parent isotope to actually be able to plug into an equation after 50,000-70,000 yrs but are you saying that C14 has fluctuated prior to that time frame? I am still learning about this and am very interested to get the latest information available.
Thanks for the video. It helps me when preparing for exams !
Great, I hope the exams go well.
Thanks, this vedio helps with my assignment ☺
Great that it did.
This assumes that the ratio of C14 in living material is the same now as it was millions or hundreds of millions of years ago.
Not hundreds of millions of years, the half-life of carbon is relatively short, 5730 years, therefore it can only used to date objects that have been dead for not more than about 70,000 years. And of course it has not always been constant, but at this level we make those assumption to simplify the problems. Does that help?
3251 Before Jeebus Christ, pretty dank
sure.