Only 43% ofthe carbon-14 in an artifact remains. How old is the artifact?
Would the answer be less than the half life?
after one half-life, 1/2 of the material is gone. So, since more than half has gone, more than one half-life has passed.
yo guys how can you be at collage and not know math
To determine the age of the artifact, we need to consider the half-life of carbon-14. The half-life of carbon-14 is approximately 5730 years. This means that after 5730 years, half of the carbon-14 in a sample will have decayed.
In this case, if only 43% of the carbon-14 in the artifact remains, we can calculate how many half-lives have passed since the organism died and stopped taking in carbon-14.
To do this, we can use the formula:
Number of half-lives = ln(Remaining percentage) / ln(0.5)
Substituting in the given values:
Number of half-lives = ln(43%) / ln(0.5)
Using a natural logarithm calculator, we find that ln(43%) is approximately -0.839.
So, the number of half-lives is approximately -0.839 / ln(0.5) ≈ 0.839 / 0.693 ≈ 1.209
Since the question asks if the age of the artifact is less than the half-life, we can conclude that if only 43% of the carbon-14 remains, the age of the artifact is less than one half-life of carbon-14, which is approximately 5730 years.