The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years. A certain sample of wood has 20 grams of carbon-14 when it is alive.
How many grams of carbon will it have after 5,700 years?
(1 point)
Responses
10 grams
10 grams
5 grams
5 grams
40 grams
40 grams
2 grams
The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, which means that after 5,700 years, half of the original amount of carbon-14 will remain.
Therefore, after 5,700 years, the sample of wood will have 10 grams of carbon-14.
The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, which means that after every 5,700 years, the amount of carbon-14 in a sample will reduce by half.
If a certain sample of wood initially has 20 grams of carbon-14, after 5,700 years it will have 10 grams.
To determine how many grams of carbon-14 will remain after 5,700 years, we need to understand the concept of half-life.
The half-life of a substance is the time it takes for half of the initial amount to decay or decay into another element. In this case, the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years. This means that after 5,700 years, half of the carbon-14 will have decayed, and half will remain.
Starting with 20 grams of carbon-14, we know that after 5,700 years, half of it will remain. Thus, we can calculate the remaining amount by dividing the initial amount by 2:
20 grams / 2 = 10 grams
Therefore, after 5,700 years, the wood sample will have approximately 10 grams of carbon-14 left.
So, the correct answer is:
10 grams