Information about carbon dating

There was also a historical test of a piece of linen performed in by Willard Libby , the inventor of the dating method. One of the earliest carbon dating tests was carried out on November 14, In , Robert Eisenman and Philip R. Davies made a request to date a number of scrolls, which led to a series of tests carried out in Zurich on samples from fourteen scrolls. Among these were samples from other sites around the Dead Sea, which contained date indications within the text to supply a control for the carbon dating results.

Radiocarbon dating was invented in the late s, and in the many decades since, archaeologists have discovered wiggles in the radiocarbon curve—because atmospheric carbon has been found to fluctuate over time. Adjustments to that curve to correct for the wiggles "wiggles" really is the scientific term used by the researchers are called calibrations. Radiocarbon dating is one of the best known archaeological dating tools available to scientists, and most people have at least heard of it. But there are a lot of misconceptions about how radiocarbon works and how reliable a technique it is; this article will attempt to clear them up.

Radiocarbon dating also referred to as carbon dating or carbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon , a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby , who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in It is based on the fact that radiocarbon 14 C is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting 14 C combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide , which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis ; animals then acquire 14 C by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of 14 C it contains begins to decrease as the 14 C undergoes radioactive decay.

Carbon is a very important chemical element , with a chemical symbol of C. All known life on Earth needs it. Carbon has atomic mass 12 and atomic number 6.