Question

1.Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope. What is an isotope?

What is the approximate half-life of carbon-14?

Answer 1

Isotopes of an element have the same number of electrons and protons but a different number of neutrons.
The half life of C-14 is approximately 5,700 years. You can look up the exact half life by Googling it. You could also Google isotopes and get the definition from the web. In fact, at least half the questions I answer here can be found on the internet through Google.

Answer 2

an element is determined by the number of protons in its nucleus.
In the case of carbon, that is 6.
The stable Carbon-12 also has 6 neutrons, making its atomic mass number 6+6=12
Radioactive Carbon-14 has 8 neutrons instead of 6.
An isotope is a form of an element with a different number of neutrons from the most common form.

Now go google carbon-14 (and isotope, while you're at it!) and you can find its half-life and how it is used.

Answer 3

thank you!(