What are the limits and rules of Carbon Dating?

Question

What are the limits and rules of Carbon Dating?

Answer 1

No kisses on the first date, don't mix things up with oxygen, only date at fancy restaurants....sorry, couldn't resist.

Carbon dating is a form of radioactive dating using the decay of carbon-14 isotopes. Roughly speaking, by knowing the half-life of carbon-14 (if you have a sample of isotopes, how long it will take half the nuclides present in the sample to decay), you can measure the number of isotopes present, and work out the age of the object.

The major limitation is that it only works with objects that were once alive in some form--e.g. wood--and so had carbon in them in the first place. Also, it only works over extremely long periods of time, and in the end as radioactive decay is random, it can only be an approximation. Additionally, you have to be able to know the sample size from when the object was living.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Carbon dating is a variety of radioactive dating which is applicable only to matter which was once living and presumed to be in equilibrium with the atmosphere, taking in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis.

Carbon-14 dating is a way of determining the age of certain archeological artifacts of up to about 50,000-60,000 years old.