Use the equation we have derived for carbon dating, N(t) = N₀ e ^{− 0.0001216 t}, to answer the following question. It may be helpful to know that the half-life of ¹⁴C is 5700 years.

Problem 2- Calculate the age of a fossil

Approximately how old is a fossil with 12 g of ¹⁴C if it initially possessed 32 g of ¹⁴C?

It takes approximately 8066 years for 32 g of ¹⁴C to decay to 12 g.

Again, this makes sense in light of the half-life. That is, 16 g of ¹⁴C would remain after 5700 years and 8 g would remain after 11,400 years.

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