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Charcoal age calculation.

User

A piece of charcoal used for cooking is found at the remains of an ancient

campsite. A 1.00-kg sample of carbon from the wood has an activity equal to 5.00

3 10 decays per minute. Find the age of the charcoal. Hint: Living material has an

activity equal to 15.0 decays/minute per gram of carbon present

ChatGPT

To determine the age of the charcoal, we can use the concept of radioactive decay and the known half-
life of carbon-14. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon that is present in all living things, but
decays at a known rate after death.

The decay rate of carbon-14 can be expressed as:

N(t) = N₀e^(-λt)

where:

N(t) is the number of carbon-14 atoms remaining at time t

N₀ is the initial number of carbon-14 atoms

λ is the decay constant, which is equal to ln(2) divided by the half-life of carbon-14 (t₁/₂)

t is the time elapsed since the death of the organism

We can rearrange this equation to solve for the age of the charcoal:
t = (1/λ) ln(N₀/N(t))

To apply this equation, we need to find the initial number of carbon-14 atoms (N₀) in the charcoal
sample. We can do this by converting the activity of the sample (5.00 × 10³ decays/min) to the number
of carbon-14 atoms present.

Living material has an activity equal to 15.0 decays/minute per gram of carbon present. Therefore, the
activity of our charcoal sample is:

5.00 × 10³ decays/min = (15.0 decays/min/g) × (mass of carbon in sample)

Solving for the mass of carbon in the sample, we get:

mass of carbon in sample = 5.00 × 10³ decays/min / 15.0 decays/min/g = 333.33 g

So our sample contains 333.33 g of carbon, which is equal to 333.33/12.01 moles of carbon.

Next, we need to calculate the number of carbon-14 atoms in the sample. Carbon-14 makes up a very
small percentage of all carbon, so we can use the following equation to calculate the number of carbon-
14 atoms:

N = (moles of carbon) × (number of atoms per mole) × (fraction of carbon-14 atoms)

The fraction of carbon-14 atoms can be found using the known half-life of carbon-14 (t₁/₂ = 5730 years).
The fraction of carbon-14 atoms remaining after time t is:

f = e^(-λt)
We can rearrange this equation to solve for the fraction of carbon-14 atoms present at the time of
death:

f₀ = e^(λt)

Substituting the values for λ and t, we get:

f₀ = e^[(ln(2) / 5730 yr⁻¹) × t] = e^(t/8260 yr)

So the fraction of carbon-14 atoms in the charcoal sample is:

f = f₀ = e^(t/8260 yr)

Substituting this value into the equation for N, we get:

N = (333.33/12.01 mol) × (6.02 × 10²³ atoms/mol) × e^(t/8260 yr) × (1/10¹²)

The last factor (1/10¹²) is to convert from picocuries (10⁻¹² curies) to atoms.

Now we have everything we need to calculate the age of the charcoal using the equation:

t = (1/λ) ln(N₀/N(t))

where λ = ln(2) / 5730 yr⁻¹.

Substituting the values, we get:

t = (1 / (ln(2) / 5730 yr⁻¹)) ln[(6.02 × 10

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