Calculating the Age of a Body Using Carbon-14 Dating

[salsabel]

In 1991, hikers found the frozen remains of a man in a glacier in the Alps, near the Austrian-Italian border. Carbon-14 analysis of tissue samples taken from the body revealed that the ratio of carbon-14 was 52.7% of what it was originally. Calculate the age of the body.

A formula to calculate how old a sample is by carbon-14 dating is:
t = [ ln (Nf/No) / (-0.693) ] x t1/2
where ln is the natural logarithm,
Nf/No is the percent of carbon-14 in the sample compared to the amount in living tissue
t1/2 is the half-life of carbon-14 (5,700 years).

Is that right?

 

[astrorob]

Certainly looks it.

 

[Moetasim]

Yes, that is correct. Using the given information, we can calculate the age of the body using the formula provided. The initial amount of carbon-14 (No) is assumed to be 100%, and the final amount (Nf) is 52.7%. The half-life of carbon-14 is known to be 5,700 years. Plugging these values into the formula, we can calculate the age of the body to be approximately 5,100 years old. This aligns with the estimated time period of the body being found in the Alps, which is around 5,300 years ago. Carbon-14 dating is a reliable method for determining the age of organic materials and has been used in various fields of research, including archaeology and forensics.