Question

the half life of carbon 14 is 5730 years. a basket has 25% of its carbon 14 remaining. about how old is the basket?

Answer 1

There have been 3 half-lives elapsed from that fossil. The fossil is 17,190 years old. The half lives are at 50%, 25%, and 12.5%.

Answer 2

For Solving this Question, I would like to ask you that, do you have the detailed conception of : Carbon

Answer 3

lol carbon doesn't really have anything to do with the question, except that it's the isotope thats decaying

Answer 4

If we had a more annoying number than 25% then we could solve the question by using the radioactive decay law:
\[N(t)=N _{0}e ^{-kt}\]
where:
\[k=\frac{ \ln(2) }{ \tau }\]
N(t): The number of isotopes after the time t.
N0: the number of isotopes to the time t=0.
t: the time.
tau (τ): the half life.
Using percentage instead of the actual number atom cores, we can remove the N0.