According to Wikipedia,Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method fordetermining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties ofradiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby, whoreceived the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in 1960. It is based on the fact that carbon-14 is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays withatmospheric nitrogen. The resulting carbon-14 combines with atmospheric oxygen to formradioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals thenacquire carbon-14 by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchangingcarbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of carbon-14 it contains begins todecrease as the carbon-14 undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of carbon-14 ina sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, providesinformation that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The older a sampleis, the less carbon-14 there is to be detected, and because the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to around 50,000years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally permit accurate analysis of oldersamples.Suppose an archaeologist has recently unearthed a set of short-faced bear bone fragments and laboratoryanalysis found that the bone fragments have lost 87.1% of their original carbon-14 content.Determine the approximate age of the bone fragments. The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby, whoreceived the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in 1960. It is based on the fact that carbon-14 is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays withatmospheric nitrogen. The resulting carbon-14 combines with atmospheric oxygen to formradioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals thenacquire carbon-14 by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchangingcarbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of carbon-14 it contains begins todecrease as the carbon-14 undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of carbon-14 ina sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, providesinformation that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The older a sampleis, the less carbon-14 there is to be detected, and because the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to around 50,000years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally permit accurate analysis of oldersamples.Suppose an archaeologist has recently unearthed a set of short-faced bear bone fragments and laboratoryanalysis found that the bone fragments have lost 87.1% of their original carbon-14 content.Determine the approximate age of the bone fragments.The bone fragments are approximatelyyears old.Question Help: DVideo 1 Video 2

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Accepted Answer

Given:
Bone fragment have lost 87.1 % of their original carbon-14 content.
half-life of C-14 =5730…

Suppose an archaeologist has recently unearthed a set of short-faced bear bone fragments and laboratory analysis found that the bone fragments have lost 87.1% of their original carbon-14 content. Determine the anproximate age of the bone fragments.