Scientists Use Carbon Dating to Determine the Age of Fossils

question 26

Multiple Choice

Scientists use carbon dating to determine the age of fossils. 14C is a rare isotope of carbon that has a half life of 5730 years and decays into 14N. By measuring the amount of 14C remaining in a fossil, scientists can estimate when the organism died to within 60,000 years. The atomic numbers of C is 6 and of N is 7.
-¹⁴C and ¹⁴N have the same

• A) atomic number.
• B) number of protons.
• C) mass number.
• D) number of neutrons.
• E) number of electrons.

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Definitions:

Sample

A portion of the overall population picked for conducting studies or inquiries in order to collect demographic data.

Frequency Polygon

A graphical representation of the distribution of a dataset that shows how often each value occurs, connecting each data point by straight lines.

Frequency Distribution

A summarization of data by reporting the number of observations that fall within each range or bin of values for a specific variable.

Pie Graph

A circular chart divided into sectors, each sector shows the relative size of each value to the total.