# Who invented the method of radiocarbon dating

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Thus, using Equation $$\ref$$, $\ln \dfrac = (1.21 \times 10^) t \nonumber$ Thus, $t= \dfrac = 2 \times 10^3 \text \nonumber$ From the measurement performed in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were determined to be 2000 years old giving them a date of 53 BC, and confirming their authenticity.This discovery is in contrast to the carbon dating results for the Turin Shroud that was supposed to have wrapped Jesus’ body.Libby estimated that the steady-state radioactivity concentration of exchangeable carbon-14 would be about 14 disintegrations per minute (dpm) per gram.In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for this work.But as more dates became available, Egyptologists, who had hieroglyphic records back thousands of years, began to recognize that C-14 dates were generally too young.

Emilio Segrè asserted in his autobiography that Enrico Fermi suggested the concept to Libby at a seminar in Chicago that year.

The half-life of a radioactive isotope (usually denoted by $$t_$$) is a more familiar concept than $$k$$ for radioactivity, so although Equation $$\ref$$ is expressed in terms of $$k$$, it is more usual to quote the value of $$t_$$.

The currently accepted value for the half-life of will remain; a quarter will remain after 11,460 years; an eighth after 17,190 years; and so on.

Another problem derives from the “reservoir effect” in which old material, limestone or graphite, has contaminated the samples.

This is particularly true of marine samples and contemporary shells may seem to be hundreds of years old.