WEBVTT - How Carbon-14 Dating Works 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.520 Hey, San Francisco, we want to get back to our 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:08.880 city by bay, so we are this January. That's right, man, 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.440 We're going back to Sketch Fest. It's become an annual 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.600 deal for us. There at the Castro Theater always some 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.480 of the best audiences of the year. You are our peeps, 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.400 and we love coming to see you. So get your 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.600 tickets to see us at the Castro. H what day 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.000 are we there? We're gonna be there Saturday, January. That's 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.200 right for a prime time show, yep. So go to 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.600 s y s K live dot com and follow the 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.239 links to get information and tickets and we'll see you 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:38.320 guys in January. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:46.920 production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.960 welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.519 Chuck Bryan over there. There's Jerry right there, just laughing 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.240 it up. Yeah, and this is Stuff you should Know. 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:02.200 The jokes are Jerry ed issue Dent Science Edition a 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:06.240 k a. Chuck Dies Slowly inside Edition. Dude, No, it's 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.199 not You're gonna do just fine. This is all so intuitive, 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.440 it's wonderful. I'm not worried about not doing fine, but 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.600 thanks for the Reachirch. Well then I'm I'm really excited 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:18.720 about this. If you know that, I think you're gonna 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.119 do fine. You are going to as well. I'm going 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.279 to see to it. I think Jerry's gonna do great. Jerry, 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.800 how how are you doing over there? Okay, she's pressing 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.520 buttons like I've never seen her press buttons. Stop to that. Um, 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:33.960 I wonder what kind of weird sound effects just happened 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:38.800 after touching all those buttons. Jerry just laughed. I don't 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.040 know if the mic pick that up. All right, everybody's like, okay, 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.280 you're officially stalling now. Jerry's a quiet laugher. Though you 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.560 ever noticed that it's all knows, Yeah, she's all knows. 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:56.120 This is Jerry laughing hard. There's some doing it right now. 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.000 Serious a SMR triggering going on right now, that's right. 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.440 And there's of this not on the microphone cover, all right, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:07.280 Carbon fourteen dating It works sort of the end. It's 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.680 not the worst description of it ever. Yeah, we can 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.480 do better than that, though, Yes, and luckily you did 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:15.400 a great job with this. But I also you know, 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.919 my advice to anyone if you don't understand the science thing, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.480 and you're an adult, just don't worry about what anyone 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:24.519 behind you thinks. Just looking at your laptop and you 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.480 go to the most rudimentary children's science website you can find, 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:31.560 and that always helps. There is no shame in that, 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.639 no shame because seriously, the people who write those websites 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.359 are probably some of the best science explainers on the 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.480 planet and they know how to really just not dumb 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.560 it down because kids are smart. But that's funny. You 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.720 flip flopped on kids. Apparently you mean stupid kids. Yeah, 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:49.960 you always said they were dumb until just now, So 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.840 good for you, Chuck. We're all over the map. Well, 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.200 I feel like we're really growing up these days. So 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.240 so Carbon four Team, for those of you who don't know, 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:04.120 is this um really clever scientific method where you can 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:10.160 actually kind of look inside of a material and figure 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.680 out how much carbon fourteen is in there, and by 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.280 doing so, you can actually tell how old it is, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.000 or at least how long ago it was since the 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.160 thing you're dating was alive. Yes, and it is a 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.840 comparative Well, there's another word for that. What's it called 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.519 relative dating? Yeah, relative dating, I guess comparative isn't the 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:33.160 worst word, especially if you're talking about literature, right because 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:35.880 what they're doing is comparing it to things that are 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.200 alive today, and because of all the gobbledygook we're about 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:43.800 to talk about, that equals a pretty good estimate. And 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.440 then from there they are even further things that one 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.960 can do if one we're so inclined as a scientist, 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:50.640 and there are a lot of people who are inclined 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:56.360 to do this. This is a very exciting, um energetic 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.520 field of science right now, Like if you want to, 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.200 if you want to jump into an ever evolving, constantly 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:08.200 moving be a um field, the Baracas field kind of 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:14.120 um of of science, start studying radiocarbon dating actually wouldn't 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:15.880 be a ba Barakas field because didn't that stand for 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.839 bad attitude? Did it? I think so? Right? Oh, no, 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.920 one in radiocarbon dating has a bad attitude, but they 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.760 are be as right. But you're right it it is 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:29.000 ever evolving and they're constantly looking for better ways to 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:34.120 pinpoint more accurate timelines on things. So it's not like 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:35.920 a job you're going to get in and be like, 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.760 oh this whole thing again, right, No, no, And it's 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.200 it's just like they're constantly filling in blanks and stuff 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.240 like that. It's just it's good work. So, um, what 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.640 they're looking for the people who do radiocarbon dating is 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.120 carbon fourteen, which I said, and that is radiocarbon. It's 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:54.520 called that because it's a radioactive form of carbon, that's right, 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:58.599 And it's everywhere on Earth. It's just all over the place. 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:00.800 It's part of the carbon side goal and it's part 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.360 of the web of life. But it starts out way 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.640 up in outer space as cosmic ray, that's right. Should 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.720 we give the basis definition before we jump to the 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.320 radio carbon dat Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think like 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.000 the most rudimentary definition might help some people out. Um. 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:23.000 But like you said, carbon fourteen is everywhere, including inside us, 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:27.960 because it's in plants via photosynthesis, and we eat plants, 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.880 and animals eat plants. Some people eat animals, and because 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.480 of that, it's kind of in every living thing. Uh. 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:41.520 And carbon fourteen dies away very slowly. And because we 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.560 know this, because we know it happens predictably, then we 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.520 can measure that in a sample and then compare it, 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.120 like I said, to something living and then you do 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.440 a little math Ipso fact though it's probably an ipso 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.080 facto is it? Presto change, Yeah, presto change about it 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:04.760 being about about it being bon Jovi? What was that 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.960 that was yours? Was it? Yeah? Man? You came up 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.920 with that on a carousel at Zoo Atlanta in about 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.240 two thousand and twelve. That's right. That's where that's carbon 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:18.000 dated too. Yeah, that joke. But because we know that, 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.599 we can compare it to something that's alive today and 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:22.440 then with a little math we can figure out the 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.360 rough estimate of how old it is. Yeah, that's I mean, 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.800 that's radio carbon dating in a nutshell for sure. That's right. 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.520 But like you said, it starts out as cosmic rays 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.480 way out in outer space, right, and so a cosmic ray, 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:37.279 we're not entirely certain where they come from, but they're 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:42.400 super high energy particles, usually like pieces of atoms, that 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.640 are just shooting towards Earth and through outer space at 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.440 incredible speeds, and when they encounter the atmosphere, they start 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.680 running into the atoms that make up the atmosphere. And 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.600 because these particles are so high energy, these cosmic rays, 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.120 when they smack into atoms and other particles in all 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.560 acules and all that. They just burst them apart, not 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.840 just burst like an adam into like it's protons and neutrons. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.840 It'll tear apart of neutron like like it's nothing. Actually 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:19.480 creates other high energy particles like muons, pions, x rays, um, 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:25.960 what else? Zaxon's No, that was a video game, was it, Zaxon? Yeah? 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:29.800 With a z uh Yeah. I think it was z 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:35.400 A double x O N. I am not familiar with that. Okay, 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.600 it wasn't a stand up game. Actually it may have been, 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:39.440 but I played it on a r because I could 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.200 see a kid in a Kiss T shirt playing that 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.480 game stand up in an arcade. Yes, it sounds like 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.280 that kind of game. That would have been me had 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.720 I not been deathly afraid of Kiss because they were devil. 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.760 They were nights in Satan's service obviously. Yeah. Okay, So 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.440 all these muons, X rays, pions, all that stuff, there's 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.400 one other little particle that can be created when a 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.600 cosmic ray collides with an atom, and that is a neutron, 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:11.160 a high energy neutron. Right, that's right. Okay, So what's 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.960 happening now is a chain reaction because cosmic rays are 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.840 bombarding the atmosphere, that's right, And uh, what can happen 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.280 is they can get really pushy. Uh if a high 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.280 energy neutron collides with let's say a nitrogen fourteen atom, Yeah, 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.680 they'll get real pushy and they'll just knock the proton 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:30.800 off and move right in there and say this is 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.800 my house now, right. So what was once a stable 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:40.200 atom nitrogen fourteen, which had seven protons and seven neutron, 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:46.359 is now an unstable atom with six protons and eight neutrons, 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.040 and now it's no longer nitrogen fourteen. What you have, fella, 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:55.000 is carbon fourteen. Yes, an unstable meaning radioactive, but not 0:08:55.200 --> 0:09:00.160 radioactive meaning like scary and dangerous. No, it just means it. 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.720 It's it's in a higher energy state, and it's temporary. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:11.960 Eventually wants to decay back into that um nitrogen fourteen stately, Yeah, 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:16.880 eventually it's sometimes spontaneously, sometime down the road, that neutron 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.600 will turn back into a proton, which sounds like magic 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.240 until you realize that atoms and all of the particles 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.200 that make up atoms are really just vibrations of energy, 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.000 and it can temporarily go to a higher energy state 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.520 or a lower energy state. And that is how something 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.880 would change from like a high energy neutron back to 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.439 a proton. Right. And he said that carbon fourteen is everywhere, 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.680 which is true, but that doesn't mean there's like tons 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:48.160 and tons of it relative to carbon carbon twelve. Yeah, 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.080 there's a lot more carbon twelve. Right. So carbon twelve 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.880 is the stable version of carbon, and it's way more 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.319 abundant than carbon fourteen. Carbon fourteen is kind of like 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:02.080 a freak, a monster that gets made accidentally, and it's 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.240 extremely rare, even though there's a ton of it, but 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.640 compared to carbon twelve, it's very rare. Something like one 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:15.600 carbon fourteen atom for every trillion carbon atoms. That's that's 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.440 that's pretty rare. But it also gives us a ratio chuck, 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.679 And this is a big initial point. Yeah, And like 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.600 you mentioned before too, or maybe I said it, it's uh, 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.680 this is part of the carbon cycle. So it's inside 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.040 all the plants and the animals. Reading the plants were 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.360 eating plants, some people eat animals, so it's inside all 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:37.800 of us and it's everywhere. Uh. But that ratio is 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.000 really important because, like we said, it starts to decrease 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.800 because it craves homeostasis and wants to get back to 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:49.320 its former life. It's a stable particles, a stable boy, 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.880 stable boy, brush that horse, and it would be it 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:55.760 would be an atom because it's going from a carbon 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:59.360 fourteen atom to a nitrogen fourteen atom, right, But that 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:01.800 ratio is in ard it because as it's you know, 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:05.160 dies away, they're going to be fewer and fewer carbon 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:09.400 fourteen atoms with that dead organism over time, whereas if 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.319 something is alive, it has that steady amount. And that's 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:16.240 where the comparison comes in, right, because as far as 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:20.720 a plant, or you, or a dog or anything living 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:26.319 is concerned, there's no difference whatsoever between a carbon fourteen 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.000 molecule of carbon dioxide and a carbon twelve molecule of 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:33.520 carbon dioxide. Yeah. I mean, it sounds hard to digest 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.680 because we said it's radioactive, but there really is no 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.760 difference as far as we're concerned, right. Um, It basically 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.439 takes a human scientists to analyze it using an extremely 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.320 sophisticated machine to be able to tell the difference. So 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.679 that means that when it does, you know, come down 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.960 out of the atmosphere, it's spewed out by a volcano 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.720 or something like that. Um that it just becomes part 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.280 of the food chain like any other atom of part 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.479 of carbon that's locked in with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.080 So as you're living, like you were saying, you're constantly 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.800 taking it in, you're constantly eating. It's just a part 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.960 of life, as carbon fourteen and carbon twelve. Right, But 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.920 when you die, you stop taking in carbon of all kinds, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.319 and all of a sudden that a clock has said 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.360 because of that decay of carbon fourteen, that's right, And 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:28.200 that decay, like we said, it happens spontaneously, and Adam 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:33.000 might suddenly convert from carbon fourteen to nitrogen fourteen. You 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.840 can't predict when that's going to happen because of the uncertainty. 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:40.080 That's part of quantum physics, right, But if you have 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.439 a large enough sample, then you can start to predict 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:48.360 when x number or x percentage of that that sample 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:53.680 of carbon fourteen will have spontaneously changed from carbon fourteen 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.200 to nitrogen fourteen. And that's called the half life. That 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.920 which is everyone has heard of. That's that's half life. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.560 It's just standard stuff. Yeah, I think everyone has heard 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.200 of half life, and about the people that know that 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.280 term don't really fully grasp it. Well, yeah, it's just 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.920 this the amount of time it takes for half of 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:17.760 the radioactive atoms in any given sample to convert back 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:21.120 into a stable form. Yeah, that's it. It's pretty easy. Uh. 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.040 And we know in this case the half life and 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.400 we'll get to how we figured all this out, but 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.319 the half life of carbon fourteen is five thousand, seven 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:33.920 hundred and thirty years. Um, if you know you keep going, 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.960 it goes to a quarter life, then I guess in eight. Yeah, 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.040 it just keeps going. So like if you have a 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.240 hundred carbon fourteen atoms, if you come visit it in 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.400 fifty and thirty years, you're gonna find you a fifty. 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.120 And if you visit in another thirty years, you're going 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.800 to have then twelve and a half or thirteen maybe, 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.520 I don't know. It just keeps going until there's ultimately none. 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:00.880 Laughed over a long enought touch of time, which is 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.079 with carbon fourteen, like fifty or sixty thousand years. Yeah, 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:08.120 I saw sixty thousand mostly, but then I think it 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.680 starts can get a little hinky at fifty, So fifty 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:13.600 to sixty is pretty good, and I think it gets 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:17.200 hinky at this point because our because of the equipment 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.120 we're using to measure it. I think as our equipment 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.960 gets more and more sensitive, that time will go further 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.800 and further out, because as long as you have two atoms, 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.240 you should still be able to measure them, you know, 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.760 for sure, or even one. Probably, I'm not going to 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:37.080 go out on a limb for that one, but I'm gonna. 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.120 I'm gonna caveat that with them probably. Okay, Well, let's 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.000 take a little break here and we're gonna come back 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.320 here in a second. Talk about the very smart dude 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.120 who figured all this stuff out quite a few years ago. 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:02.800 All right, Chuck, Just to recap real quick, because I 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.920 think this this episode bears it. Okay, Okay, you've got 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.720 carbon fourteen. It's part of the food chain. You take 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.160 it in as you're living. When you die, you stop 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.920 taking it in, and so those carbon fourteen adams start 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.840 to decay, which means that if you compared a dead 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:22.120 organism to a living organism, and the ratio of carbon 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.800 fourteen to carbon twelve in the dead organism compared to 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.840 the living organism, you be able to tell how long 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.040 ago the dead organism was alive and taking him more carbon. 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.920 And that's the basis of radio carbon dating. That's right. 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.160 So that is Uh, we have Amanda thank from the 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:43.120 University of Chicago name Willard Libby. That's a great name. 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.680 I heard his name was wild Man or wild Bill, 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.400 wild Man, Willard Libby, Yeah, because he's just crazy. I 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.280 guess you must have been a party animal. Who knows. 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.040 You don't get a nickname like wild Bill for nothing. 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:02.040 They don't go around handing those out to just anybody. Yeah, 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.240 not even just figuring out carbon fourteen dating. You wouldn't 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.920 get a wild man for that. No, No, like even 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:12.520 Chris Farley wasn't called wild Bill. I think Lillard Livy 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.920 had a side a side gig. Yeah, you know, but 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.720 he was the party monster maybe at the University of 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:24.400 Chicago in the nineteen forties. Perhaps, so he figured out 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.880 how carbon fourteen worked and how it could be used 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:32.120 to do this before we were even positive science even 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.560 knew for a fact that there was such a thing 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.640 as carbon fourteen. That's a pretty impressive, uh. And in fact, 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.200 it was just a few short years after we had 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:45.080 discovered cosmic rays. So he was really on the leading 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.240 edge of science. You know he was a wild man, right, 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.080 He's like, these particles, we're not even sure they exist, 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:52.840 but if they do, we could figure out how to 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.400 use them to date dead organisms. And he won a 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.520 Nobel Prize in nineteen sixty for this, I think rightfully. 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:02.480 So in chemistry, yeah, for sure, even though as we'll see, 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.439 he got a few things wrong. And the one thing 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.600 that's kind of tough to wrap your head around here 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:13.119 is he and this is it just is what it 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.639 is at this point, I think. But he selected nineteen fifty, 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:19.959 the year nineteen fifty is year zero for his experimentation, 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.960 and he compared all the samples against this, and that 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.840 is still what we do today. That we didn't. We 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.239 didn't revise a lot of this stuff. It's interesting, no, Like, 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.880 they definitely are, like, okay. I think the reason why 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:36.040 is because by the time it started to start to 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:41.280 become sophisticated and and more refined, so many samples had 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.919 gone through that it's like, we're just gonna stick with 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:48.160 this for now. It's really interesting. So nineteen fifty, when 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.800 you're radio carbon dating an object, that is year zero, 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.840 So um, anytime you get a date back, which we'll 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.800 talk about it's actually saying this is how long before 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.960 nineteen fifty this thing was last alive? Right, and we're 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:01.959 not talking it just it doesn't have to be like 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.800 a plant fossil um because we said carbon is in 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.920 you know, virtually everything. So a leather belt comes from 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.200 a cow, cow ate the plant um. What else wouldn't 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:19.000 plant in ships a pig fabrica. We find poop, of course, 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:23.800 old poop, old old alcohol, old beer because of yeast. 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.920 There are many, many, many things obviously bodies, oats, Yeah, 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:33.840 our pal. Yeah, as long as whatever you are dating 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.520 was at one point alive, which means it wasn't a 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:42.200 rock or a mineral from birth like it's you can 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:43.719 date it. You should be able to date as long 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.960 as it's about fifty or sixty thousand years or younger. Yeah, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.240 But there was a problem early on in this process 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.399 because you needed a lot of this material, uh to 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.880 basically destroy to find out how old it is. And 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:00.600 people didn't want to give up these gray eight fines, 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:05.000 Like they're like, I found a a skull and they're like, well, 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:06.960 can we destroy that skull to find out how old 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.359 it is? And you know they would turn around and 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.640 say no, it's my skull, right right, And then the 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.879 radio carbon researchers saying, like I was just asking to 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:16.920 be pleasant, give me that skull. Yeah, but then you 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.840 would say, no, it's my skull and I'm just happy 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.840 to call it old right, And WELLRD Libby would step 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.520 in and just do like a wild man pile driver 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.080 on the guy with this skull got the name. You 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:32.399 would just come in and crush people hiding maybe in 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.439 another room and back or something, just pound someone to go, 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.520 he would swarm. Um. But here's the thing. We've gotten 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.200 a lot better over time. The equipment has gotten a 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.240 lot better, more sophisticated, so we don't need that much now. 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.359 And people are giving up their fines because you can 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:53.199 have a little gram bone from the skull and I 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.199 think everything will be okay. Yeah. And so because of that, 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.000 like it's gotten way more common to radio carbon dates 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.440 stuff I read in the UK. Um they really started 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.560 dating everything they found because the UK passed a lot 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.800 of that said, if you're a developer and you turn 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.399 up any sort of archaeological evidence, I'm like one of 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.080 your buildings or developments, you have to pay to have 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.160 it dated. And so like it started to kind of 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.240 get the burden for paying for it was shifted to industry, 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:23.720 and so it started to really blow up, and that 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.840 helped kind of push the technology along and help lower 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.320 the expense and increase the sophistication of the machines that 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.639 were being used. Yeah, it's pretty pretty neat how that happens. Well, 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:36.840 here's what you gotta do if you're gonna start out 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.359 this process is you've got to really clean your sample 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.920 very well. Otherwise it's gonna um you can mess up everything, 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:46.800 and not just the test that you're making. If you 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:49.400 have what's called a hot sample, which means you didn't 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.600 clean it well enough for it's contaminated a graham of 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:57.159 hot sample, you can destroy a lab basically to the 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.280 point where they'll just have to shut down for for 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.200 weeks or even months to get everything right, and everything 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.400 in there might be destroyed, like, yeah, all the other 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:10.680 samples that may be super valuable my skull. Yeah, you know. Sorry. Um, 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.120 so it's a big deal if something isn't cleaned right, 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.200 because it really throws everything off and CARU and everything else. 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.120 But once you do have it cleaned, um, when you 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:21.640 date it, there's a few different methods that you can use, 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:23.800 but the one that I saw is the most common 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:30.639 is actually turning that carbon based sample into carbon graphite, 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.640 like pure carbon. And then you take that little piece 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.800 of pure carbon that you've just created and you shoot 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:41.480 a beam of energy through it, a lot of energy. Yeah, 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.800 like two million volts, which is a lot, just all 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:47.800 once I think they ramp it up, don't they, Yeah, 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.560 over time, but at some point it's got it's it's 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:55.760 been accelerated to two million volts of energy, okay. And 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:58.159 then so once you have this thing basically a particle 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:02.760 mini particle accelerators pass through a spectrometer which can actually 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:08.160 measure the different masses of the atoms in this beam 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.240 that you've shot through the graphite. That's right, it's detecting 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.560 the little bits of carbon. Yeah, that's pretty impressive stuff. 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:16.640 I mean, this is the kind this is the level 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.080 of technology we're at right now in two thousand nineteen, 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:21.360 and this has been around since like the eighties or nineties. 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.040 Just think of what's coming next. What do they use 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:29.520 Before the spectrometer, they used something beta counting, and it 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:32.720 was clunky and expensive and not nearly as reliable. But 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.800 basically what it did was something different where it would 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:40.840 sit there and and study a piece of graphite or gas. 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.680 They often gasify stuff to pure gas, and then it 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:46.720 would just like shoot a beam through and study I 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:50.399 think a beam. It would somehow study the sample for 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:55.520 days maybe, and it would count the number of atoms 0:22:55.720 --> 0:23:01.159 that had spontaneously converted from carbon four team new carbon twelve, 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:03.879 and then it would do a little mathematic rigamarole and 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.560 say this is how this is how at this rate 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:08.880 of decay, this is how old this organism is. Well, 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:11.560 thank goodness, we have the spectrometer now then, because it's 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:15.320 much more precise and it sounds more futuristic too. Yeah, 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:20.240 mass pectrometers. So you're gonna shoot this beam, you're gonna 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:22.840 throw it in the Wonder machine. Actually not the Wonder machine, 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:28.360 We've already taken that. Yeah, it's a thoughtless piece of crap. Fight. Uh. 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:32.160 And then you compare that ratio to the again year zero, 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:37.640 which is the ratio in which is still a little confusing. Yeah, 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:41.959 it's clunky, It is very clunky. And then that difference, basically, 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.359