Helen Becker

Mathematics

20 November, 22:22

The half life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years, assuming you start with 100% of carbon-14, what is the expression for the percent, p (t), of carbon-14 that remains in an organism that is t years old and what is the percent of carbon-14 remaining (rounded to the nearest whole percent) in an organism estimated to be 20,000 years old?

hint: the exponential equation for half life s p (t) = ao (0.5) ^t/h, where p (t) is the percent of carbon-14 remaining, ao, is the initial amount (100%), t is age of organism in years, and h is the half life.

a. p (t) = 100 (0.5) ^5,730t, 29% remaining

b. p (t) = 100 (0.5) ^5,730/t, 91% remaining

c. p (t) = 5,730 (0.5) ^100t, 5,710 remaining

d. p (t) = 100 (0.5) ^t/5,730, 9% remaining