I'm tearing my hair out with what i thought was a simple question and wondered if anyone can help out. i have to estimate the age of a water sample i have 0.416 mg carbon-14 atoms in total (from dissolved CO2 HCO-3 & CO-3) and 1.246mg of daughter nitrogen-14 atoms (N2 molecules) I have trawled through my book and i just can't get to grips with this can someone please give me a helping hand, i'm desperate, many many thanks to someone who can em.
I'm tearing my hair out with the same question did you have any luck sorting it? I think we need to work out how many atoms are in the 0.416 mg and 1.246 mg before we can do anything but i don't know how to do this. If you can help please let me know.:shrug:
You have three times as much N14 as C14, so if you assume that all the N14 came from C14, it means the C14 has gone through 2 half-lives. If not all the N14 came from C14, then I don't think the problem can be worked out with the information given.
