How was radiocarbon discovered?
The technique of radiocarbon dating was discovered by Willard Frank Libby and his colleagues in 1949. He was at that time working as a professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago. Since then it has proved to be a useful tool, mainly for archeologists for dating ancient objects. Today we can find out the age of several substances using samples from biological remains found in excavations and other archeological findings. Carbon dating can be used to find the age of matter as old as 60,000 years. What is carbon dating? Carbon dating or radiocarbon dating is a technique used in dating matter such as bone, cloth, wood and plant fibre – anything that was once alive. All living things contain an element called carbon. This carbon is present in different varieties, one of which is carbon-14. Out of the different forms, carbon-14 is special because it is radioactive. Being radioactive, in simple terms, means that the element disintegrates over time. The time in which it decays to half