Homework Help: Alg2

Posted by Cal on Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 9:51pm.

A piece of wood discovered in an archaeological dig was found to have lost 62% of it's carbon-14. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5630 years. Determine it's age.

Alg2 - Reiny, Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 9:56pm
I would use the equation

amount = initialvalue(1/2)^(t/half-life)

so
.62 = 1(1/2)^(t/5630)
ln .62 = (t/5630)ln .5
t/5630 = ln .62/ln .5 = .689659879
t = 3882.785

The age is appr. 3883 years

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