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Carbon-14, C-14, 14 C or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons.Its presence in organic matter is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and colleagues (1949) to date archaeological, geological and hydrogeological samples.
Isotopes are nuclides with the same number of protons but differing numbers of neutrons; that is, they have the same atomic number and are therefore the same chemical element. Isotopes neighbor each other vertically. Examples include carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14 in the table above.
Carbon (6 C) has 14 known isotopes, from 8 C to 20 C as well as 22 C, of which 12 C and 13 C are stable.The longest-lived radioisotope is 14 C, with a half-life of 5.70(3) × 10 3 years. . This is also the only carbon radioisotope found in nature, as trace quantities are formed cosmogenically by the reactio
C ratio: with a sample of known date, and a measurement of the value of N (the number of atoms of 14 C remaining in the sample), the carbon-dating equation allows the calculation of N 0 – the number of atoms of 14 C in the sample at the time the tree ring was formed – and hence the 14 C / 12 C ratio in the atmosphere at that time.
The number of nucleons (both protons and neutrons) in the nucleus is the atom's mass number, and each isotope of a given element has a different mass number. For example, carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14 are three isotopes of the element carbon with mass numbers 12, 13, and 14, respectively. The atomic number of carbon is 6, which means that ...
Three isotopes occur naturally, 12 C and 13 C being stable, while 14 C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of 5,700 years. [15] Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity. [16] Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium ...
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On the other hand, carbon-14 decays by beta decay, whereby one neutron is transmuted into a proton with the emission of an electron and an antineutrino. Thus the atomic number increases by 1 (Z: 6 → 7) and the mass number remains the same (A = 14), while the number of neutrons decreases by 1 (N: 8 → 7). [5]