Go ahead!...ask us anything!

[imported_Rasputin]

I'm no expert here but sea water is a good insulator of radiation. But once removed the carbon in any substance remains.

Well this is getting in a little deep but Carbon dating, as far as I know it anyways,relies on measuring only the C 14 atoms which remain in the fossil or whatever.

The Earth's atmoshphere is constantly bombarded by cosmic radiationevery day, from memory everything in the universe is subjected toapprox 1/2million cosmic rays every hour. When these rays enter our atmosphere theycollide with otheratomsforming energetic neutrons which in turncollide with nitrogen atoms which change the proton/neutron mix to formasix protoneight neutroncarbon-14 atom.Carbon-14 is radioactive and has a half life decay cycle of around 5 and half thousand years. That is unlike normal Carbon atoms it actually decays and dissipates over timereverting back to it's original atomic structure as the radiation dissipates. This stuff gets into everything by way of the food chains but only remains at a finite level while the living organism is consuming the stuff. When the plant or animal or human dies it stops taking the stuff in and it then starts to dissipate over a very finite time frame. By measuringhow much of it is left in any given fossil it can be determined when the intake stopped, ie death occured hence it's age.

Well that's my brief and general understanding of it anyways and am not aware how oceanic conditions play any role in it.

 

This message has been deleted by the author.

 

[Grubrunner™]

{[That was me deleting. I'll try and reduce the page width]}
Interesting replies to the Adam & Eve question. Some switched on folks here. Cheers.
I have a little hidden passion in the Solar System and the kind. I don't know a hell of a lot about the topic, but do know a tad.
I have a question that many 'space' lovers-enthusiests (sp)have been tossing around since it occured;
Was the 1969Appollo(Buzz Aldrin and Neal Armstrong)space landing on the moon fake...or was it a legit happening?
For those who are intersted, here are some excellent pages that constructively and mature-lyquestion NASSA's claims. Well worth the time to look thru and consider their well backed claims;
[url]http://www.batesmotel.8m.com/[/url]
[url]http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.lunaranomalies.com/fake-moon.htm[/url]
And then there is always the flip side of the coin;
[url]http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html[/url]
These are just a small handfull of websites that are out there on the topic. Put a search engine to work if you are interested in the topic.
I'd like to give my couple'a cents worth if the topic kicks off here in this thread, butin the mean timI'llleave this post with one question that I have, and many of the websites also ask;
If the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing is legit, then why haveNASSA not repeated, or even attempted,the act in almost 35 years?

The Moon or a Studio in the Nevada Desert?

 

[Willow]

"Was the 1969Appollo(Buzz Aldrin and Neal Armstrong)space landing on the moon fake...or was it a legit "

lol, it was legit. Good conspiracy theory though.

"If the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing is legit, then why haveNASSA not repeated, or even attempted,the act in almost 35 years?"

Without double checking,NASA made several more moon landings - a Apollo 12, 14, 15 (and 16?) before giving it away.

Why? Because there's nothing bloody there.

There are bigger fish to fry. Probes and robots are cheaper and send back some good data. Space stations seem to be the focus as well.

Although I would like to see a bloke on Mars.

 

[imported_Rasputin]

Was the 1969Appollo(Buzz Aldrin and Neal Armstrong)space landing on the moon fake...or was it a legit happening?
I have heard this one many times before and quite frankly wouldn't put it past the bastards to pull a swifty of this magnitude. But I guess it comes down to conjecture and if it was in fact a fake then it is one of the best keptsecrets of all timebecause out of the thousands who would have to have been in on itnonehavee ever indicated it to be so.

If the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing is legit, then why haveNASSA not repeated, or even attempted,the act in almost 35 years?
Well why would they want to, we now know there is absolutely nothing there of any value. By their very nature ifit was rich in minerals or oil they would have brought the whole bloody thing back down to earth but as ithas no value they simply don't want to know about it. Isn't that the way they are about everything?

 

[Broncos-fan-baller]

Good post Grunbrunner and thanks for the links.
I just had a quick skim thru a couple themand I really don't know how anyone can claim the moon landings legitimacy with the opinions provided on them. Some very eye popping claims which seem to be backed up by some good evidence and views. Interesting reads.
I'll have a thorough look though them all come daylight, but I'm with Rasputin at this early stage. I wouldn't put it beyond these seppo mongrelsto pull a fast one over the world.
'fan-baller

 

[CanadianSteve]

There was a bad movie in the 70s called Capricorn One, which was the story of a fake, staged space launch gone wrong. I forget the plot but the US gov't was trying to kill the astronauts so they wouldn't reveal that the whole thing had been a fake.

Re: carbon dating. I read something years ago, trying to say carbon dating was inaccurate. Ittook the example of a long candle burning. You can observe it and tell the rate of burning, but you still can't say when the candle started to burn because you don't know its original length. What's the pro-carbon dating answer to that?

 

[imported_Rasputin]

CS: Ittook the example of a long candle burning. You can observe it and tell the rate of burning, but you still can't say when the candle started to burn because you don't know its original length. What's the pro-carbon dating answer to that?

But when the length of the candle is always a known constant the determination of its time of ignition is easily determined by the rate of its burn.Well at least C14 atmospheric content was a known constant for the last billion years or so priorto mankindsintroductionof nuclear fission and radioactive isotopes into our environment.

 

[CanadianSteve]

Rasputin: Sorry, I didn't follow that. I admit I'm out of my depth scientifically. But the candle example is assuming the observer comes in after the candle started burning, and you didn't know the original length of the candle. So again, you can determine the rate, but how can you know the original length or the time it started burning?

Similarly, science is trying to determine the age of things without having been there at the beginning, isn't it?

Well at least C14 atmospheric content was a known constant for the last billion years or so. Is this based on the assumption of there being billions of years in the first place? Isn't that circular reasoning?

 

[Willow]

I canunderstand that a lot of people mistrust carbon dating, especially creationists.

But carbon dating has also been usedto datethe Dead Sea Scrolls and this was readily accepted.So there must be some religious leaders who see it as a legitimate science.

Interestingly, carbon dating was also used on the Shroud of Turin but the answer wasn't what the church wanted to hear so in this case, carbon datingwasn't so readily accepted.

 

[CanadianSteve]

Willow, I'm just asking about carbon dating. as I don't really know how it works.

Interestingly, carbon dating was also used on the Shroud of Turin but the answer wasn't what the church wanted to hear so in this case, carbon datingwasn't so readily accepted.

In all I've read or heard about the shroud, which isn't that much, I didn't know there was an answer the church wanted to hear. How did you know what they were thinking? And who do you mean by the church, anyway? The RC church? My understanding is that the shroud is now regarded as a fraud by all.

 

[El Duque]

Have a quick read of this http://physicsweb.org/article/news/5/5/7

 

[Willow]

Steve: I just realised that this isnt the 'thoughts on society' thread. The discussion here has taken an almost identical turn. My fault for putting in before checking.

Anyway, I don't claim to know what the church is thinking... its too big and too complex for anyone make that claim. Your interpretation of my meaning was a little off track.

You say that the Shroud of Turin is a fraud and I agree with you. But I do remember reading articles that there are some that stillquestion the results and don't want to hear otherwise. I'm sure a little researchwill verify this.
Additionally, I do recall that there was some resistence to having the shroud dated and it was with some reluctance that the question was finally allowed to be answered.

In any case, theDead Sea Scrolls and the Shroud of Turin are just examples of how carbon dating can prove or disprove somethingand some will stillquestion the result. This is a little different though because in relative terms it's recent history.

 

[El Duque]

Willow, before you start rating carbon datin check this site out http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/dating.html

 

[Willow]

OK El... but I don't think I'm rating carbon dating as the end of all ends. There's sure to have been a few cock-ups.
But I'm not sure if I can rate a site that focuses on the cock-ups either. Not enough balance imo.
Theremust be loads of websites and publications with opposing opinion on the issue and the debate is sure to rage on.

 

[imported_Rasputin]

Steve: But the candle example is assuming the observer comes in after the candle started burning, and you didn't know the original length of the candle.
Well we now have 2 seperate debates going on and El has made some very good points regarding the accuracy of longer term C14 dating methods.

However the concern regarding the validity or otherwise of C14 dating covers the time frame greater than 10,000 years.It's accuracy for the short term period up to around 10,000 years ago is not really in dispute as we have a much clearer pictureand understanding ofatmospheric conditions during this short time frame.

Using the candle example if we know how much C14 was in the atmosphere at the time the fossil being dated was alive then we know exactly how much it absorbed. This is becauseC14 is a saturant and it's level is in equiliburim, that is the level is the same in all living things. If we know how much was there when the organisim died then we know the length of the candle.We know the burn rate because C14 dissipates at a very constant rate hence we know by measuring how much is left how long ago it died.

Steve: Is this based on the assumption of there being billions of years in the first place? Isn't that circular reasoning?
You have to look at the magnitude of the scale of things in the universe. Everything, from galaxies down to solar systems and planets within a system is basically all moving outwards at a rather constant rate of expansion. Each of these bodies holds its location due to the balance/counter balance of magnet fields that lock it all into place, it is all held together and while it does expand the individual positions remain relative to each other. If a star implodes, goes nova, then all the surrounding stars have to move in towards each other to fill the gap till balance is restored. All this is occuring on a massive scale. The movement of the universe is really quite quick in terms of it's ownscale but on our scale, which we basically measure by the length of our lifetimes, everything seems totally stagnant by comparison. A year to us is a few 100 million years to the universe. Whatever stars you see at night are no longer where you see them, in fact the star itself may have gone nova 7 million years ago and you wouldn't know it. This is because the light that is reaching you that enables you to see it left that star millions of years ago, so you are looking at a snapshot picture that was taken millions of years ago,the way it looked way back when the light left it. It is all a scale that is not within our measurements and billions of years is not a presumption. However we are not talking billions or millions with C14 dating, we are dealing with a miniscule 5,000 to 10,000 year timeframe, a timeframe where humans actually recorded, via paintings, structures or whatever, events which occured.Maybe alot to us but not even a secondin the scale of the universe, very littlehas changed out there inthat time.

El: I see where you were coming from with the oceans now and it is a good point. However no matter what the uncertainty over the pre 10,000 year mark is I don't think that issue should cloud the accuracy of the method for dealing with dating in the shorter term up to 5,000 years ago which is what we are dealing with.

Willow, I think it is fairly well accepted that the dead sea scrolls were written pre the fall of Jerusalem, 70 AD, by a jewish religious sect. It is believed they were buried in the caves to protect them from the Roman wrath and the jars they were buried in were from that time period. They were not written at one time but cumulatively over a very long time by many writers folowing each other.

 

[imported_Kaon]

For one thing, anything that has the word "bible" in the heading, you can discount straight away.


Rasputin has done a pretty job in clarifying a few things but it helps understanding how any type of dating works. There are some exceptional circumstances in which other factors have to be considered but these are very rare. All up, any type of dating is reliant on the setup used to measure the ratios.

 

[CanadianSteve]

http://www3.sympatico.ca/bibleprophecy/evolution.htmHere's a site to check re evolution and carbon dating.


However we are not talking billions or millions with C14 dating, we are dealing with a miniscule 5,000 to 10,000 year timeframe

Weren't you using it earlier as proof that the earth is billions of years old?

 

[CanadianSteve]

Steve: I just realised that this isnt the 'thoughts on society' thread. The discussion here has taken an almost identical turn - Willow

Hopefully we can turn every thread into a discussion on religion. Which one next?

 

[CanadianSteve]

Just getting the 700. That's a 600 and a 700 in one day for me.