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Article #888Re: simple question
From: Eric Rescorla
Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1992 16:15
Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1992 16:15
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In article <9204080901.aa00587@Paris.ics.uci.edu> kibler@turing.ICS.UCI.EDU (Dennis Kibler) writes: > Let me put it in a more concrete form. Suppose we use carbon >dating to measure the age of a fossilized plant. I don't >understand why we aren't measuring the age of the carbon, >created I presume at the some time before the age of the earth, >rather than the age of the plant. The percentage of C14 in the atmosphere is ~constant over time. As long as you're alive, you exchange carbon with the atmosphere and maintain the atmospheric concentration of C14 in your system. When you die, you stop exchanging and that's the zero-time. -Ekr -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Rescorla, DoD#431, Honda CM400 rider rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu Yale University Department of Chemistry We hack anything. My mind is now for rent: C/Unix,Vacuum Tech,Machining,P-Chemist. Hire me, eh?
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Newsgroups: sci.physics Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!yale.edu!cs.yale.edu!rtnmr.chem.yale.edu!rescorla From: rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) Subject: Re: simple question Message-ID: <1992Apr8.161532.24698@cs.yale.edu> Sender: news@cs.yale.edu (Usenet News) Nntp-Posting-Host: rtnmr.chem.yale.edu Organization: Rescorla for himself. References: <9204080901.aa00587@Paris.ics.uci.edu> Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 16:15:32 GMT Lines: 19