Chapter 8.2, Problem 43ES

(a) It is currently accepted that the half-life of carbon-14 might vary $\pm 40$ years from its nominal value of 5730 years. Does this variation make it possible that the Shroud of Thin dates to the time of Jesus of Nazareth (see Example 7)?

(b) Review the subsection of Section 3.5 entitled Error Propagation, and then estimate the percentage error that results in the computed age of an artifact from an $r\%$ error in the half-life of carbon-14.