Process
This dating method works by measuring the ratio of oxidizable carbon to organic carbon. If the sample is freshly burned there will be no oxidizable carbon because it would have all been removed by the combustion process. Over time this will change and the amount of organic carbon will decrease to be replaced by oxidizable carbon. By measuring the ratio of oxidized carbon to organic carbon (the OCR) and applying it to the following equation the age of the sample can be determined with a very low standard error.
Read more about this topic: Oxidizable Carbon Ratio Dating
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“It haunts me, the passage of time. I think time is a merciless thing. I think life is a process of burning oneself out and time is the fire that burns you. But I think the spirit of man is a good adversary.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods—moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former—but no opinion.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Every modern male has, lying at the bottom of his psyche, a large, primitive being covered with hair down to his feet. Making contact with this Wild Man is the step the Eighties male or the Nineties male has yet to take. That bucketing-out process has yet to begin in our contemporary culture.”
—Robert Bly (b. 1926)