Can I get some help in learning about carbon dating?

Not to be confused with Speed Dating:

http://www.radiocarbon.org/

http://hbar.phys.msu.ru/gorm/fomenko/libby.htm

Carbon dating is redundant as you’re very unlikely to fall for a being that isn’t carbon based.

(Waiting for @grumpyfish to finsih ‘crafting his response’ so mine isn’t the first)

@grumpyfish Thank you. That is the very article I was looking for.

Welcome to Fluther @Sabotage82

What do you mean by “original sources”?

The wikipedia article seems like a decent overview to me, and it cites numerous sources. You might also try an archaeology textbook.

Do you have a specific question about carbon dating you’d like answered?

@Qingu No specific questions yet. I am intrigued by carbon dating and I want to understand it from the original methods and work my way up from there. I want the hard facts and details about the method. I did check out the wikipedia article, but the source it mentioned was not accessable. So I thought I would see if anybody had access to some good sources that started with the man who came up with carbon dating.

I’m not sure why you want to look at carbon dating from the “man who came up with it” (according to the Wiki article, it was this guy, and it has links to several more articles about him).

But you’re talking about a scientific method. In science, we don’t care who came up with what, we just care if it works. It’s like you’re asking to learn about physics by reading Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Newton basically invented modern physics, but that book is not a good place to start—partly because it’s incredibly hard to read, but also because we’ve since improved on a lot of what Newton wrote about.

@Sabotage82 I want to take a wild stab and guess that maybe you’re researching against young-earth creationism that says that Carbon dating doesn’t work? If so—starting at the beginning and looking at WHY C-14 works is the way to go =)

@Quingu Okay. “But you’re talking about a scientific method.” I am aware. I was the one that asked the question.

”(according to the Wiki article, it was this guy, and it has links to several more articles about him).” I could care less. I figured I’d start with the original source and work my way from there. Best source or not I want to know about the method which “this guy” came up with originally.

“In science, we don’t care who came up with what, we just care if it works.”
Great. Does it work? I don’t know. I’d like to find out for myself by doing my own study of the subject. Unless there is something wrong with that.

“It’s like you’re asking to learn about physics by reading Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Newton basically invented modern physics, but that book is not a good place to start—partly because it’s incredibly hard to read, but also because we’ve since improved on a lot of what Newton wrote about.” What the hell does that have to do with my question. If you are trying to be funny you failed. I am trying to learn about somehting I dont know much about. Is that okay?

Carbon dating actually has nothing to do with age-of-the-earth arguments. (The half-life is too short; it’s only used to date recent archaeological materials)

We use other radiometric dating methods to determine the age of the earth.

Which is why it’s so cute when creationists bring up carbon dating.

@Sabotage82 And really, I support random reading of science (particularly if you’re not actually practicing in the field)—I do that all the time.

@Sabotage82, my point was that it’s probably not going to be too helpful to look at “original sources” for a scientific method, because there are better ways to learn about how and why it works.

Similarly, you wouldn’t read Newton’s treatise on physics to learn about how and why physics works.

You can do whatever you want, I just think it would be easier to learn about this subject by starting with introductory material than with highly technical (and probably outdated) scientific papers written by the guy who first thought of it.

Also, there’s not really any question among the scientific community as to whether carbon dating “works.” Though I guess this would depend on what you mean by “work,” as scientists still have to interpret the results.

@Qingu I’d like to do both. I don’t mind getting technical. Got any links to suggest?

@grumpyfish The whole creationism thing is a whole other issue in my opinion. I jsut want to understand how we have come to the conclusions we have with carbon dating. @Qingu What other radiometric dating methods are there?

Nothing beyond the Wiki page. This site also looks decent, though it’s ugly:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/cardat.html

As a rule, I would ignore any website with the word “Jesus” in it.

IIRC, there are about 14 methods. You can use any radioactive material to date material under certain circumstances.

Radioactive elements decay at known rates. Carbon’s is quite short, but others have half-lifes of millions of years. This means they change into the element “to the left” of them on the periodic table. So, if you have a certain amount of element X and it decays into element Y, you can compare how much of each there are in a rock to tell the rock’s date.

The most useful for dating the “age of the earth” and ancient rocks are potassium-argon and uranium-lead.

@Qingu How do you know all this?

Me personally? I took general science classes in college; it’s also part of my current job to keep relatively well-informed on this stuff.

Or are you asking “how do scientists know”? We know the rates of radioactive decay through quantum mechanics. (Edit: we knew about them before QM was formalized, I believe, but QM has really proved them beyond a shadow of doubt).

“As a rule, I would ignore any website with the word “Jesus” in it.” I really find my patience being tested by you. I know the difference between scholarly writing and a fucking God site. I know the relgious ass holes have a hang up with carbon dating. I don’t care about that.

“it’s also part of my current job to keep relatively well-informed on this stuff.” This is useful. How do you keep well-informed? What are your sources? Thats all I’m asking. No Jesus. No creationism. Fuck all that. Thanks.

Uh, okay. I only said that because a shitload of creationist sites turn up high on Google searches.

I read Science and Nature for work, which don’t really explain radiometric dating so much as assume basic knowledge of it for some of their articles. Honestly, the Wikipedia articles on “carbon dating” and “radiometric dating” look fine to me.

@Qingu Thank you for your help. I will give wikipedia another look and I will definately look into Science and Nature.

What do you do for a living?

@Qingu – An interesting example showing the limits of Google’s PageRank algorithm. Rich linking doesn’t seem to care about semantics. Not all “relevant” results are relevant except when psychologists study the phenomenon of creationism. I wonder, why bother changing the science curriculum? Just make sure righteous websites show up for the “carbon dating” search term. A truly frightening prospect.