Posted by Erol Abit on June 22, 1999 at 15:10:47:
In Reply to: Re: Sources of error in Carbon-14 dating? posted by Erol Abit on June 22, 1999 at 14:36:45:
: Dear Steve,
: My knowledge about C14 technique was very few. I searched the sources on the net to have an idea on if the errors are because of its mathematics or not. I found a good page with a simple language. The link to there is at the bottom. It seems that the errors are not due to the complexity of formula. Even it is logarithmic or exponential, it is very simple for the computers available to us today. I think the measurement or sampling technique used in C14 is local sampling which may give very different results from point to point in a rug. Since the old rugs are not so homogeneous because of, for ex., smoke in a small part of the rug being analysed, the number of sampling must be chosen as many as enough in the case of old rugs. Then, the averaging the local measurements will give better results with better accuracy.
: Regards,
: Erol
I should have said that the formula is very sensitive since it is a power function, as you see in the slope of the curve. But this doesn't mean that source of error is a computational error. To me, it is only because of sampling. To reduce the sampling number rug experts must collobrate with those who do tests. E. Abit