Asked by Cal

A piece of wood discovered in an archaeological dig was found to have lost 62% of it's carbon-14. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5630 years. Determine it's age.
Answered by Reiny
I would use the equation

amount = initialvalue(1/2)^(t/half-life)

so
.62 = 1(1/2)^(t/5630)
ln .62 = (t/5630)ln .5
t/5630 = ln .62/ln .5 = .689659879
t = 3882.785

The age is appr. 3883 years
Answered by chemstruggler
The tree's age can't be 3883 as the halflife is 5630 years and the tree has lost more than 50% of its c14, therefore, it would had to have undergone at least one halflife so the age would have to be at least more than the halflife length
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