Radioactive carbon dating

Science doesn't reject the supernatural. Science studies the natural world, which is defined to be anything we can detect with our senses. This includes indirect means of detecting natural phenomena, such as thermometers that measure a temperature we can't actually see.Since there's no way to detect the supernatural with our senses, the supernatural cannot be studied by science. For this reason science can make no comment pro or con about the existence of the supernatural.Much of religion deals with the interface between the natural and the supernatural, and science can successfully address claims of the supernatural having an effect on the natural, such as when God performs a miracle.There has not to this point in time been any scientifically validated miracle, but that doesn't mean they don't happen. What is needed is a supernatural phenomenon that regularly breaks known physical laws of the natural universe so that it can be studied.--Percy

Common Sense Science is a pseudoscience site. This is from their homepage: You're unlikely to find anything at this site that has actual scientific support, meaning theories or ideas supported by replicated experiments and/or observations that have been published in the peer-reviewed literature. Common sense has much to recommend it, but you really can't beat experiments and observations as a way of figuring out how the universe works.Looking at Nuclear Binding and Half-Lives, the article you referenced, Coragyps is correct, the nucleus is not held together electromagnetically. Since protons all have a positive charge and repel each other, that's impossible. See the Wikipedia article on the Strong Nuclear Force to see what actually holds atomic nuclei together.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Spelling.

Okay, let's not get off-topic here. If you want to believe the Common Sense Science website, as far as this thread goes that's your business. It's the net charge that matters. Protons and electrons are made up of quarks which do have partial charges, but only the net charge has an effect. Speak for yourself. A debate is sort of like the joke about the bear, where one guy says as he flees, "I don't have to run faster than the bear, I only have to run faster than you." In other words, I don't have to know everything, I only have to know more than you. If you'd like to invite someone knowledgeable from Common Sense Science to come here and discuss their views on radiocarbon dating I think that'd be a great idea. But until that happens you're sort of going to have to stumble along and support your position as best you can.You're up against strong experimental data supporting the existence of the strong force. The strong force is mediated by the exchange of pions and other similar particles which have all been detected experimentally and which were predicted theoretically before being detected. The strong force is not an inverse-square force - it drops off much more quickly than that. It is very strong, hence the name, and that's why positively charged protons can stay adjacent to each other in an atomic nucleus. But as soon as they separate slightly the strong force becomes too weak to overcome the electromagnetic repulsion, and one of the protons is expelled from the nucleus.Let me clarify what the article, Nuclear Binding and Half-Lives, is talking about. It is using the shell model of the atomic nucleus that holds that neutrons and protons reside in the nucleus in energy shells. The article proposes the idea that there are actually two isotopes of ⁴⁰K, each with the neutrons in a different shell configuration. This is not a view shared by the shell model, which holds that all nuclei of the same isotope have the same shell structure, and I was unable to find anything in the literature indicating otherwise.So given this, I guess I'd want to ask what is the support for the possibility of multiple nuclear shell configurations offered by your article? It's hard to tell precisely what you're trying to say here, but unless major typos are involved it's very likely wrong. Potassium is a common metal of the earth's magma. When magma emerges from the earth we instead call it lava. Potassium is a common component of magma, and it is also a common component of lava. Nothing else is possible since lava is just extruded magma. I've never heard of a "half-life triple point". You may be confusing half-life, an atomic measure of the time it takes for half of a sample of a radioactive element to decay, with the triple point, a chemical measure of the pressure and temperature at which an element can exist in the three states of solid, liquid and gas. The phrase "triple point" does not appear in your article.What I think you'll find as you look into this is that the experimental and theoretical support for the views advanced in that article do not exist.Getting to the bottom line, the phenomenon your article purports to explain, namely anomalous K/Ar dating, has never been detected, and it's been correlated with many other dating methods that aren't subject to the claims of your article. Further, even if there were two different types of the ⁴⁰K isotope, since they are identical both atomically and chemically, their concentration would be identical in all potassium samples everywhere, and they could not cause K/Ar misdating.--Percy

Yes, I know, but I'm in discussion with someone who's arguing that electromagnetic forces keep the atomic nucleus together. If you want to jump in you can make your own choices about where to draw the line about level of detail. I'd be more than happy if someone more knowledgeable took over.I have a much easier time at a Baptist sermon than a Congregational. I can sit back at the Baptist sermon and observe it with the same detachment as Meade observing the natives of Samoa. But at a Congregational sermon I cannot be detached as the beliefs expressed are almost like mine, but not quite. It's like looking in a distorted mirror, very disturbing. I think you see my posts attempting to simplify in the same way.By the way, I'm curious about this nuclear shell stuff. I couldn't get a gauge on how widely accepted this view of the nucleus is. I know it makes some successful predictions about which isotopes might be stable, but it isn't perfect at that. Any information?--Percy

As near as we can tell, one proton is just like every other proton, and one neutron is just like every other neutron. What you need is evidence supporting the view that protons and neutrons can have different quark configurations that affect their behavior in the nucleus. Uh, you're forgetting that to the bear we're both food.But you're ignoring the point. It isn't an issue of whether we're both expert physicists. It's only an issue of who can bring more accurate, relevant and compelling information to the debate. Provide a link, I'll look at it, but it would be better to describe the evidence supporting their model. This is still nonsense. The half-life of radioactive isotopes is no different at their triple point than at any other reasonable temperature and pressure. It is only when you get into the much higher temperature and pressures inside stars, nova and supernova that half-lives are affected. It isn't a matter of whether you agree with me or not, but whether you can support your position with evidence and argument or not. Since different nuclear shell configurations are identical both atomically and chemically, and since only atomic and chemical forces are at work within the earth, they cannot be separated and have varying concentrations. Of course it's a failure. By definition it has to be a failure at measuring the age of recent materials. The long half-life of ⁴⁰K (over a billion years) means that it is really only effective for material older than about 100,000 years, and even that would be straining the technique a bit. It's best used on materials at least a million years old. Using K/Ar dating on a recent lava flow would be like using a yardstick to measure the width of a human hair. Hopefully you're referring again to recent volcanoes. K/Ar dating is one of the most important tools in the geologist's kit for dating ancient volcanic flows. Can't make sense out of this. Mount St. Helens is a surface feature of the earth's outer crust. The mantle is miles below the volcano.--Percy

Forget the picture. It was your request I look at one, not my request you provide one. What I said, and you quoted it, was that it would be better to describe the evidence supporting their model. Anyone can draw pictures, but unless there's supporting evidence they're just fantasy. Perhaps I am right? Of course I'm right. As James Thurber coined and as Casey Stengel was fond of saying, "You could look it up!"So since the triple point has no effect on half-life, what point were you trying to make when you said: About the inability of K/Ar dating to date recent materials you say: As I had just finished explaining, it's not a failure of the K/Ar dating method. The method does precisely what it is intended to do, accurately date materials older than a few hundred thousand years. The inability of a yardstick to measure the width of a human hair is not a failure of the yardstick. It is an inappropriate use of a measuring device. The yardstick is still an excellent tool for measuring the dimensions of rooms and things of similar size.The reverse example would be using a micrometer to measure the dimensions of a room. The micrometer's inability to perform this task is not a failure of the micrometer, but just an inappropriate use of it. The micrometer is still an excellent device for measuring the width of a human hair.Anyway, tell us why you think there are "major implications" of the K/Ar method's inability to date recent material, especially since recent material is something no competent scientist would use the method for. I guess that's from the Department of Redundancy Department. Not sure how this is relevant, other than that ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating is consistent with K/Ar dating. Sorry, still can't figure out what you're saying. Why don't you describe what Steve Austin found and what Dr. Henke said about it.The bottom line remains unchanged. The half-life of ⁴⁰K is unaffected by any process within the earth. There is no atomic or chemical process that could separate ⁴⁰K isotopes with different nuclear shell configurations. The replies in Message 118 and Message 119 from Kbertsche also provide excellent information.--PercyPS - Could someone take a look at the Wikipedia article on Potassium/Argon Dating. The paragraph that begins "A problem with K-Ar dating is..." is a pretty poor explanation of the issue. It doesn't mention anything about taking readings at different vaporization temperatures to form an isochron that tells you that a valid date from the material can't be obtained when the points don't fall on a straight line, and the term "aliquot" is unlikely to be understood by anyone without an explanation, or at least a cross-referenced entry in Wikipedia. Anyone here capable of fixing this Wikipedia entry?

Okay, Fooj, fair enough. You can pick this up again sometime down the road if you change your mind.--Percy

Hi Sailorstide,Your concern is that the variability of ¹⁴C production makes radiocarbon dating unreliable, and this is a legitimate concern. There are some natural processes that are sufficiently constant and consistent that they can be used for dating, and some that cannot. For example, the rate of deposition of geological layers as well as the possibility of negative deposition (e.g., through erosion) is so variable that their thickness cannot be used as a reliable dating measure.So the general question you're raising is whether the rate at which ¹⁴C is added to our atmosphere is sufficiently consistent to provide a reliable dating measure, and you're specifically singling out solar flares as a potential source of variability.The huge solar flare of 1956 was mentioned in a similar thread (see Message 59 in thread Request for Carbon-14 Dating explanation), and it is described this way in Solar Modulation of Cosmic Ray Intensity and Solar Flare Events Inferred from ¹⁴C Contents in Dated Tree Rings: The half life of ¹⁴C is approximately 5730 years. That means that however much ¹⁴C is on the Earth right now, only half it will still be around in 5730 years. Only 1/4 of it will still be around in 11,460 years. It takes more than 50,000 years for so much of it to decay that it's nearly indetectable.In other words, it takes a long time for ¹⁴C to disappear once it's been created. It's as if you have a large swimming pool into which you add a single drop of a special treatment chemical every day, and it takes 50,000 years for a drop of the chemical to degrade. The drop of chemical you add today is added to the drop you added yesterday, and the drop you added the day before, and the day before that, and so forth back 50,000 years. The drop you add today is a minuscule amount compared to what is already in the pool.So if on one day out of every 11 years or so (the period length of our sun's solar flare cycle) you add 365 drops instead of just one drop, those 365 drops are still just a teensy, teensy portion of the number of drops already in the pool. No one would ever notice. You'd have to add gallons and gallons of special chemical for anyone to notice without doing a detailed chemical analysis.The same is true of the amount of ¹⁴C already resident on earth. There's 50,000 year's worth of ¹⁴C already here. If during a solar flare an entire year's worth of ¹⁴C is added on a single day it would barely be noticeable. And as that technical paper I referenced above describes, it really is only just barely detectable.So if there had never been any solar flare activity before 50 years ago (50 years ago is what you mentioned) and the amount of ¹⁴C on earth were reduced by the amount of all the solar flares that we assume would normally occur, it would have a barely measurable effect on the dates yielded by radiocarbon dating. Perhaps something measured as 10,000 years old might really be only 9,900 years old.And if solar flare activity in the past were actually much greater than it is today then it would affect radiocarbon dating in the wrong direction for young earth arguments. If there had been huge amounts of ancient solar flare activity of which we were completely unaware then objects dated to be 10,000 years old would actually be much, much older.Dates yielded by the radiocarbon dating method strongly agree with dates yielded by other methods, such as tree rings, ice cores, and lake sedimentary layers (usually called varves). This agreement would be impossible if radiocarbon dating was an invalid method.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.