Chapter 9, Problem 57P

Interpretation Introduction

Interpretation:

The plant from which the shroud was made was alive around 1350AD. The passed time-period corresponds to how many half-lives should be determined.

Concept Introduction:

Radioactive dating is a technique for the determination of the "age" of a mineral sample by determining the presence of the relative amounts of radioactive elements. Age is the time passed from when the mineral sample was formed.

In Carbon dating orcarbon-14 dating, the “age” of an organic specimen is concludedby exploiting the properties of a radioactive carbon isotope or radiocarbon.The rate of decay of any radioactive isotope is calculated in half-life. This term is defined as the time taken by one-half of the atoms of any radioactive material to degenerate.