Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and how the tech are you? It is time for
Speaker 1: a tech Stuff classic episode. This episode originally aired on
Speaker 1: August tenth, two thousand fifteen. It is titled is carbon
Speaker 1: Dating on the Way out? This episode might need to
Speaker 1: be carbon dated. Let's take a listen. This comes from
Speaker 1: nikkil Cardale, and I do apologize that I'm sure I
Speaker 1: mispronounced your name, but uh, the request was could you
Speaker 1: do an episode explaining this carbon dating is pretty useful?
Speaker 1: So this effect seems relevant and uh. Cardale actually uh
Speaker 1: commented on and and included another tweet from real scientists
Speaker 1: that including an article titled will our fossil use ruin
Speaker 1: our ability to use carbon dating as a scientific tool?
Speaker 1: This is really fascinating the idea of using carbon dating, uh,
Speaker 1: and how that that method might be in jeopardy because
Speaker 1: of the use of fossil fuels. So I thought I
Speaker 1: would go into that explain what carbon dating is and
Speaker 1: why it might not be an accurate means of telling
Speaker 1: how old something is after too long So going into
Speaker 1: the article, it's about how the enormous amount of carbon
Speaker 1: emissions we generate could make carbon dating and unreliable means
Speaker 1: to determine the age of certain types of materials. But
Speaker 1: to understand how that's possible, we need to know how
Speaker 1: carbon dating works first, So we're gonna do a carbon
Speaker 1: dating one oh one. Now, the first thing that we
Speaker 1: have to talk about is carbon fourteen. So the fourteen
Speaker 1: in carbon fourteen tells us it's an isotope of carbon.
Speaker 1: This particular isotope must have eight neutrons because carbon has
Speaker 1: six protons. You can change the number of neutrons in
Speaker 1: an atom, that's the different types of isotopes atoms may have,
Speaker 1: but you can't change the number of protons and atom
Speaker 1: has without changing that element. So carbon has six protons,
Speaker 1: and if you change that number of protons, you change
Speaker 1: the element itself. It acts reacts differently in chemical operations,
Speaker 1: and uh is no longer carbon. So carbon twelve is
Speaker 1: the most common form of carbon that we find. It
Speaker 1: has six protons and six neutrons. Then you have carbon thirteen,
Speaker 1: which is six protons and seven neutrons, and both of
Speaker 1: those are stable forms of carbon that means they don't decay.
Speaker 1: So if you have carbon twelve or carbon thirteen, you
Speaker 1: put it in a box and you leave for I
Speaker 1: don't know, two billion years, and you come back, you're
Speaker 1: still gonna have carbon twelve or carbon thirteen because they
Speaker 1: remain stable they do not decay. But carbon fourteen is different.
Speaker 1: It is a radio isotope. Radioisotopes are also known as
Speaker 1: radio nucleides, and these are isotopes of a particular atom
Speaker 1: that have an unstable nucleus. These isotopes undergo what we
Speaker 1: call nuclear decay, and in that process they release some
Speaker 1: excess energy in the form of stuff like gamma rays
Speaker 1: and or subatomic particles. Carbon fourteen undergoes what is called
Speaker 1: beta decay. So when it decays, one of the neutrons
Speaker 1: in the nucleus spontaneously changes into a proton, an electron,
Speaker 1: and an anti neutrino. The nucleus gives the boot to
Speaker 1: the electron and the anti neutrino, but the proton stays behind,
Speaker 1: which means the atom no longer is a carbon atom.
Speaker 1: Since again we mentioned that atoms depend upon the number
Speaker 1: of protons and the nucleus, so the carbon fourteen decays
Speaker 1: into nitrogen fourteen, and nitrogen fourteen has seven protons and
Speaker 1: seven neutrons. Also, by the way, one of the few
Speaker 1: stable elements that has both an odd number of protons
Speaker 1: and an odd number of neutrons uh, and nitrogen fourteen
Speaker 1: is stable. It makes up the vast majority of the
Speaker 1: nitrogen found naturally unearthed, More than of the nitrogen found
Speaker 1: on Earth is nitrogen fourteen. So radioactive decay occurs naturally
Speaker 1: within these isotopes, and it's a spontaneous occurrence. That's really
Speaker 1: important to remember. Carbon fourteen has a radioactive half life
Speaker 1: of about five thousand, seven hundred years. There's some confusion
Speaker 1: about what that means. I find in day to day
Speaker 1: conversations with people who haven't had science in a while.
Speaker 1: You guys who have recently had this in science class,
Speaker 1: you're rolling your eyes right now. But for adults who
Speaker 1: have not taken a science class in a long time,
Speaker 1: this might require some some refreshing. So half life of
Speaker 1: five thousand, seven hundred years, what does that mean? It
Speaker 1: means if you have a given amount of carbon fourteen,
Speaker 1: after five thousand, seven hundred years or so, you'll have
Speaker 1: only half of that carbon fourteen remaining. The other half
Speaker 1: having undergone decay radioactive decay and turning into nitrogen. Now,
Speaker 1: this doesn't mean that all the carbon fourteen will be
Speaker 1: gone after another five thousand, seven hundred years, nor does
Speaker 1: it mean that carbon fourteen has a full life of
Speaker 1: eleven thousand, four hundred years or anything like that. In fact,
Speaker 1: what it really means is that after another five thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred years, half of the remaining sample will have decayed,
Speaker 1: leaving you with about a quarter of what you started with.
Speaker 1: And another five thousand, seven hundred years if that means
Speaker 1: you'd be left with about an eighth of that sample,
Speaker 1: and so on. Carbon fourteen exists naturally on Earth in
Speaker 1: trace amounts. Before the nineteen forties, the carbon fourteen on
Speaker 1: Earth was created through a natural process. Once in a while,
Speaker 1: cosmic rays, these very high energy particles in outer space,
Speaker 1: would collide with an atom in our atmosphere or upper atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and this collision would end up emitting a high energy
Speaker 1: neutron that then could collide with nitrogen atoms that are
Speaker 1: also way up there in our atmosphere. Now, cosmic rays
Speaker 1: are high energy sub atomic particles. They originate outside of
Speaker 1: our solar system, usually they're emitted by supernova of massive stars,
Speaker 1: and these subatomic particles are primarily atomic nuclei and high
Speaker 1: energy protons. So this collision of the high energy neutron
Speaker 1: with the nitrogen forces a proton to leave the nucleus
Speaker 1: and the IN fourteen changes to C fourteen, So in
Speaker 1: other words, nitrogen fourteen turns to carbon fourteen. So instead
Speaker 1: of having seven protons and seven neutrons, the new atom
Speaker 1: has six protons and eight neutrons. The proton that was
Speaker 1: broken off from the nucleus zooms off with an electron,
Speaker 1: so you get one proton and one electron. That means
Speaker 1: you have an atom of hydrogen. So again what's happening
Speaker 1: is a high energy neutron collides with hydrogen fourteen, forces
Speaker 1: out a proton. The proton and an electron high tail
Speaker 1: it and honeymoon off as hydrogen, and the incoming neutron
Speaker 1: joins the party, and now you've got carbon fourteen. So
Speaker 1: pre nineties, carbon fourteen is rare because of two reasons.
Speaker 1: It undergoes radioactive decay, so over time it disappears, and
Speaker 1: it's produced by an event that's not super frequent, though
Speaker 1: it's also not uncommon, so it does happen regularly enough
Speaker 1: that carbon fourteen is replenished, but it's a very small
Speaker 1: overall percentage of the carbon here on Earth. We'll be
Speaker 1: back with more of this classic episode of tech stuff
Speaker 1: after this quick break. Now, living things here on Earth
Speaker 1: absorb carbon through various means, and some of that carbon
Speaker 1: is carbon fort So it maybe that you know, you
Speaker 1: eat a plant and that plant has some of the
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen in it. Now you have some of the
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen and you And if we know the ratio
Speaker 1: of carbon fourteen to the stable form of carbon twelve,
Speaker 1: we can look at materials and analyze them to see
Speaker 1: how the ratio of carbon fourteen to carbon twelve in
Speaker 1: the material stacks up to the standard ratio. With living things,
Speaker 1: this becomes a matter of looking at how much carbon
Speaker 1: fourteen is not there? All right, That's it's a little confusing.
Speaker 1: Let me explain. So, when a living thing is still alive,
Speaker 1: it accumulates carbon at about the same rate it loses carbon.
Speaker 1: So carbon cosmic rays produced this carbon fourteen frequently enough
Speaker 1: that the ratio between carbon fourteen and carbon twelve remains steady.
Speaker 1: So the percentage of carbon fourteen to carbon twelve is
Speaker 1: fairly standardized. But when a living thing stops being alive
Speaker 1: and turns into a not living any more or thing,
Speaker 1: it stops accumulating carbon, so it has the carbon that
Speaker 1: it has inside of it stays. That's it. You're not
Speaker 1: losing anymore. You're not gaining any more except for carbon
Speaker 1: fourteen because carbon fourteen undergoes radioactive decay, so over time,
Speaker 1: some of that carbon fourteen starts to convert to nitrogen.
Speaker 1: So that means if you can look at the remains
Speaker 1: of a living thing and detect the ratio of carbon
Speaker 1: fourteen to carbon twelve, you can get an idea of
Speaker 1: how long ago it was that it stopped taking in carbon,
Speaker 1: as in, how long ago was it that this lip
Speaker 1: once living thing died. It gets a little more complicated
Speaker 1: than all that, but here's the basic rule. If we
Speaker 1: want to be really precise, here's the equation we use
Speaker 1: to determine the age of a sample of material. You
Speaker 1: have an equation where you take the natural logarithm of
Speaker 1: NF divided by n o uh that in turn is
Speaker 1: divided by negative point six nine three, and then you
Speaker 1: multiply it by t uh one half, so one half t.
Speaker 1: The natural logarithm is a specific logarithm applied to this
Speaker 1: equation and other things as well. NF divided way n
Speaker 1: O actually refers to the percentage of carbon fourteen and
Speaker 1: the sample compared to the amount found in living stuff today,
Speaker 1: and T times one half is the half life of carbon.
Speaker 1: So that's five thousand, seven hundred years. So it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier to understand this if we take a specific example.
Speaker 1: So let's say you've got a sample of some sort
Speaker 1: of material and you have determined that there is five
Speaker 1: percent of the amount of carbon fourteen in that material
Speaker 1: compared to what you would find in something that is
Speaker 1: alive right now, So you take a sample of a
Speaker 1: living thing, and then you take the sample of the
Speaker 1: thing you're testing. You either the thing you're testing only
Speaker 1: has five percent of the carbon fourteen you would find
Speaker 1: in living things. That means you would fill out the
Speaker 1: equation with the natural logarithm of point zero five divided
Speaker 1: by negative point six nine three, and you multiply that
Speaker 1: that result to with five thousand, seven hundred years the
Speaker 1: natural logorithm at point zero five. By the way, in
Speaker 1: case you don't want to whip out your calculator is
Speaker 1: negative two point nine nine five seven three to two
Speaker 1: seven three five five. If you divide that by negative
Speaker 1: point six nine three, you get four point three to
Speaker 1: two eight four five nine. Don't dial that number. If
Speaker 1: you take that number, the four point three, etcetera, and
Speaker 1: you multiply that by five thousand, seven hundred years, you
Speaker 1: end up with twenty four thousand, six hundred forty point
Speaker 1: two years, meaning the stuff you're looking at died somewhere
Speaker 1: around that time frame, give or take thirty two hundred years.
Speaker 1: So somewhere on twenty four thousand, six hundred forty years
Speaker 1: ago is when that thing no longer breathed or lived,
Speaker 1: or however you wanted to define it. By the way,
Speaker 1: this approach does have a limitation. Anything older than sixty
Speaker 1: thou years is pretty much out of bounds. Carbon fourteen
Speaker 1: just isn't a reliable means of dating that sort of material,
Speaker 1: and we have to rely on other methods. So carbon fourteen,
Speaker 1: because of the decay once against two very small amounts,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to narrow it down to a specific time,
Speaker 1: and if it's long enough, there won't be any carbon
Speaker 1: fourteen at all. All the carbon fourteen will have decayed
Speaker 1: by then you can't use carbon dating if there's no
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen left. So to actually test the carbon fourteen concentration,
Speaker 1: you first have to take the sample, uh whatever object
Speaker 1: it might be. You have to remove part of it,
Speaker 1: and typically you would apply some chemicals to the material,
Speaker 1: usually a very strong acid wash and a strong base wash.
Speaker 1: That's to remove all the contaminating materials that could end
Speaker 1: up giving you false readings on carbon fourteen. Then you
Speaker 1: would burn the sample within a glass container to capture
Speaker 1: the carbon dioxide that is emitted when you burn the material,
Speaker 1: and then you would analyze the carbon dioxide to find
Speaker 1: out the concentration of carbon fourteen. So you can see
Speaker 1: that this approach has a big drawback. It ends up
Speaker 1: damaging whatever it is you are attempting to date in
Speaker 1: the first place. And that's why some particularly high valued
Speaker 1: items go without being tested, because the perception is that
Speaker 1: even a small sample of that original piece would be
Speaker 1: too much damage to to uh make on this item.
Speaker 1: So certain items are considered very precious and there's a
Speaker 1: big resistance to using carbon dating because by the definition,
Speaker 1: you're going to be damaging the material. Now there's several
Speaker 1: lines of research that are exploring possible non destructive means
Speaker 1: of using radiocarbon dating. There's one that uses plasma oxidation
Speaker 1: and the use of non destructive washes to clean samples
Speaker 1: of those contaminating humic acids, which would lead to errors
Speaker 1: if they remained behind, but those are still largely in
Speaker 1: the testing phase and aren't the common means of using
Speaker 1: carbon dating. Also, keep in mind that we use this
Speaker 1: method to estimate the date of things made from organic materials,
Speaker 1: like the Dead Sea scrolls, but this estimation is based
Speaker 1: upon when the materials were harvested, so, in other words,
Speaker 1: whenever the living thing that the materials came from stopped
Speaker 1: being alive, it doesn't tell us the date of when
Speaker 1: the artifact was actually produced. So it's possible that you
Speaker 1: could come across an artifact like a scroll and you
Speaker 1: use carbon dating on it and find out that the
Speaker 1: scroll material is two thousand years old, meaning two thousand
Speaker 1: years ago whatever the scroll was made out of stopped living,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't tell you about the contents written in
Speaker 1: the scroll. It's possible that the contents were at to
Speaker 1: the scroll much after the living thing stopped being alive.
Speaker 1: Still it's a pretty good bet that the two are
Speaker 1: within the same neighborhood of time, rather than someone held
Speaker 1: onto blank scrolls for a few centuries before finally jotting
Speaker 1: something down. All Right, it's all this is cool, But
Speaker 1: how did we even figure out radio carbon dating would
Speaker 1: be a possible way of figuring out how old something is. Well.
Speaker 1: Some early discoveries were made in the nineteen thirties at
Speaker 1: the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, and you probably remember
Speaker 1: that if you've been listening to tech stuff. It factored
Speaker 1: heavily into the discussion I had with Ben Bolan about
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Project. So Franz Curry, an American physicist, observed
Speaker 1: something really interesting when he irradiated a cloud of air
Speaker 1: in a cloud chamber. He used neutrons to uh to
Speaker 1: irradiate that cloud, and he saw proton recoil tracks that
Speaker 1: indicated something was losing protons. So he concluded that the
Speaker 1: neutral rons that he was using, we're colliding with nitrogen
Speaker 1: fourteen and producing what was believed to be a form
Speaker 1: of carbon as a result, with hydrogen being the other
Speaker 1: product of this collision. His work was further explored by
Speaker 1: physicists like Tom W. Bonner, W. M. Brubaker, W. J. Bircham,
Speaker 1: and Maurice gold Hauber. Now collectively, this laid the foundation
Speaker 1: for the simple equation of a high energy neutron plus
Speaker 1: nitrogen fourteen produces one hydrogen atom and one carbon fourteen atom.
Speaker 1: Then you had Enrico Fermi. We talked about him in
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Project, and his work showed that the cross
Speaker 1: section of a nitrogen fourteen atom was much larger than
Speaker 1: other materials, and that suggested that neutron and nitrogen collisions
Speaker 1: might happen fairly regularly in nature as long as there
Speaker 1: were a supply of high energy neutrons. Stay tuned for
Speaker 1: the exciting conclusion of this textuff classic episode right after
Speaker 1: we take this break. Then you have a Serge Korf,
Speaker 1: who was a physicist who was born in Finland and
Speaker 1: whose family immigrated to the United States in the early
Speaker 1: twentieth century. He discovered the phenomenon that cosmic rays interact
Speaker 1: with atoms and produce high energy neutrons in the upper atmosphere.
Speaker 1: So Pharem's prediction and corpse observation we're starting to kind
Speaker 1: of coalesce here. The observations convinced scientists that the neutrons
Speaker 1: themselves were not cosmic rays, because the neutrons had a
Speaker 1: lifespan of just eighteen minutes, and therefore a neutron wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to survive the long trip through space. They
Speaker 1: must have been something else first, so they said the
Speaker 1: neutrons had to be a byproduct of another interaction. A
Speaker 1: cosmic ray must be interacting with something in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: That interaction caused this high energy neutron to be emitted,
Speaker 1: and Core hypothesized that these neutrons could then interact with
Speaker 1: nitrogen and fourteen to produce carbon fourteen in the upper atmosphere. Now,
Speaker 1: it was Willard F. Libby who came up with the
Speaker 1: idea that since carbon fourteen is generated at a steady
Speaker 1: rate due to cosmic ray interactions in our atmosphere, you
Speaker 1: should be able to use it to measure how long
Speaker 1: something has been dead. Libby would measure the value of
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen's half life at five thousand, five hundred sixty
Speaker 1: eight years, give or take thirty years, which became known
Speaker 1: as the Libby half life, and Libby himself would be
Speaker 1: awarded the Nobel Prize in nineteen sixty for his work
Speaker 1: in radiocarbon dating. All right, So that's the history of
Speaker 1: radiocarbon dating and generally how radiocarbon dating works. So why
Speaker 1: is it in trouble or what could possibly be causing
Speaker 1: confusion with radiocarbon dating. Well, there are two big things
Speaker 1: we need to talk about, and one was one that
Speaker 1: I've alluded to a couple of times. I mentioned that,
Speaker 1: you know, pre nineteen forties, you had a certain level
Speaker 1: of carbon fourteen that was pretty standard, but the nuclear
Speaker 1: age really messed things up for us. They made carbon
Speaker 1: fourteen dating a bit tricky. Starting in the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: we began testing nuclear bombs. Now, these bombs released a
Speaker 1: lot of energy upon exploding, partly in the form of
Speaker 1: high energy neutrons. You can probably see where this is going.
Speaker 1: Some of those high energy neutrons ended up interacting with
Speaker 1: nitrogen fourteen atoms, which meant that it produced carbon fourteen
Speaker 1: atoms as a result. So the concentration of carbon fourteen
Speaker 1: increased in the wake of nuclear bomb testing. So anything
Speaker 1: that died after the nineteen forties actually has a higher
Speaker 1: concentration of carbon fourteen than the stuff that died before
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties did even know at the time of death.
Speaker 1: According to Professor Nalini no Khannie of the Evergreen State College,
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties saw a one hundred percent spike in
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen coming into the atmosphere. In nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: the United States and Russia agreed to stop above ground
Speaker 1: nucle you're testing, and the levels of carbon fourteen in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere gradually dropped down to their normal levels. But
Speaker 1: that means there's a blip in the carbon fourteen radar
Speaker 1: between the nineteen forties and nineteen sixty three. So if
Speaker 1: you put yourself in the shoes of a future archaeologist,
Speaker 1: radiocarbon dating becomes unreliable because the levels of carbon fourteen
Speaker 1: could be deceptive. If the thing you're measuring died during
Speaker 1: the era of nuclear testing, it might appear to be
Speaker 1: younger than you thought because there's a higher concentration of
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen in its sample than you otherwise would have expected.
Speaker 1: So it may seem that something died in twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: as opposed to nineteen sixty three. That's just an example.
Speaker 1: Now to the article that prompted this episode in the
Speaker 1: first place, that's a different case. Researchers published a study
Speaker 1: in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about
Speaker 1: how the use of fossil fuels is further making radiocarbon
Speaker 1: dating less reliable, and this time it's not an excess
Speaker 1: of carbon and fourteen. It's actually the opposite problem. Fossil
Speaker 1: fuels have no carbon fourteen in them because they are
Speaker 1: fossil fuels. This is billions of years old, so they're
Speaker 1: far too old for any carbon fourteen to remain. Remember
Speaker 1: that carbon fourteen is decaying over time and turning into nitrogen,
Speaker 1: so eventually all of those carbon fourteen atoms decay. So
Speaker 1: burning a fossil fuel releases carbon dioxide, and the carbon
Speaker 1: in that CEO two has no carbon fourteen and it's
Speaker 1: all carbon toolver carbon thirteen. So the more fossil fuels
Speaker 1: we burn, the more we dilute the concentration of carbon
Speaker 1: fourteen that's in the atmosphere. So stuff from the nuclear
Speaker 1: age tends to look younger than it really is because
Speaker 1: of the higher concentration of carbon fourteen. Stuff from the
Speaker 1: later ages of fossil fuel use will look older than
Speaker 1: they really are because carbon fourteen has been diluted So
Speaker 1: according to the study, fresh organic material in twenty fifty
Speaker 1: would contain the same amount of AREB and fourteen relative
Speaker 1: to carbon twelve as something dating from ten fifty. So
Speaker 1: you have a thousand years of doubt in any radiocarbon
Speaker 1: dated samples. You would be look at the two samples
Speaker 1: if you if all you had were miniscule samples of
Speaker 1: two things and one of them was a T shirt
Speaker 1: that was made in twenty fifty, and another was a
Speaker 1: piece of cloth that dated from ten fifty, and you
Speaker 1: did radiocarbon dating, you'd get the same result. This is
Speaker 1: not good if you are trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: old something is. Heather Graven, who authored the study on
Speaker 1: fossil fuel emissions and the effect on radiocarbon dating, says
Speaker 1: that if we were to reduce carbon dioxide emissions drastically
Speaker 1: in the very near future, the effect on future radiocarbon
Speaker 1: dating would be equivalent to inserting a one year error
Speaker 1: on top of any estimation. If we don't drastically reduce emissions,
Speaker 1: that error age will continue to grow over time. One
Speaker 1: thing that the concentration of carbon fourteen tells us is
Speaker 1: how much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from the
Speaker 1: burning of fossil fuels, So as we see the concentration decrease,
Speaker 1: we know that's because proportionally more carbon twelve is being
Speaker 1: released into the atmosphere, diluting the already tiny concentration of
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen. So that's useful for scientists who are studying
Speaker 1: climate change and pollution. But that's not exactly a happy story,
Speaker 1: is it. So what are our options if carbon dating
Speaker 1: becomes unreliable. Well, that depends on what you're trying to analyze.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at inorganic stuff like rocks, you don't
Speaker 1: need to use carbon fourteen in the first place. That
Speaker 1: would be pretty much useless. You would use something else
Speaker 1: like potassium argon dating, which is useful to estimate the
Speaker 1: age of rocks that are a hundred thousand years old
Speaker 1: or younger. And if that's not a big enough range,
Speaker 1: you can actually use uranium lead dating and that will
Speaker 1: let you estimate rocks between one point four and five
Speaker 1: million years old. There's a lot of different options if
Speaker 1: you're trying to date stuff. When it comes to organic materials, however,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more tricky. Radio carbon was a great tool,
Speaker 1: but if it becomes unreliable. We're gonna have to use
Speaker 1: other methods like contextual clues and other items that are
Speaker 1: helping us connect things to dates. So this is a
Speaker 1: big problem. I guess you could argue that's a big
Speaker 1: problem for future generations. And perhaps the records we leave
Speaker 1: behind now are so uh so complete, they're so voluminous,
Speaker 1: I guess is the best word that future generations will
Speaker 1: likely have more than enough material to determine when something
Speaker 1: originated from our time versus earlier times. But the point
Speaker 1: being that the way we're interacting with our world is
Speaker 1: changing this fundamental ratio of carbon fourteen to carbon twelve,
Speaker 1: and that means that a really brilliant means of determining
Speaker 1: how old something is is not really going to be
Speaker 1: an accurate measure for very much longer. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of a bummer. Obviously, for things that are much, much
Speaker 1: much older, it'll at least in the short term, not
Speaker 1: be that big of a deal, especially if we can
Speaker 1: relate it to other items that we we already know
Speaker 1: the age of those items. It won't be as destructive
Speaker 1: as saying we can never use radio carbon dating again.
Speaker 1: We just have to keep that changing, uh ratio of
Speaker 1: carbon fourteen to carbon twelve in mind, so that we
Speaker 1: make sure we're making accurate measurements. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: that classic episode of tech Stuff about carbon dating. If
Speaker 1: you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out to me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is text Stuff H s
Speaker 1: W and I talked to you again really soon. Yes.
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