This thread about errors using navigation instruments reminded me of something I was reading yesterday. On a long train ride home yesterday I was reading Bill Brysons books "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and he was writing about carbon dating. Apparently a couple of years after carbon dating was first used to determine the age of historical objects it was discovered that the numbers used for the half-life of carbon-14 were a not completely accurate. When the corrected number was used it resulted in a 3% difference in the age of an object (younger) than when the original half-life value was used. However, because the method had been used for a couple of years and a lot of object had been carbon dated, rather than recalculate the age of all of them, all future calculations are made with the original incorrect value for carbon-14 half life. As a result, any object that has been carbon dated is actually 3% older than published. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Sep 02 2004 - 10:52:31 PDT
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