A fossil was discovered that had about 70% of the 14C level found today in living matter.
Given that the decay constant for 14C is 0.00012, determine the age of the fossil.
Enter your answer exactly as just lna
b where a is a real number to one decimal place and b
is a real number to 5 decimal places.
Suppose that a school of fish in a pond grows according to the exponential law P(t) = P0ekt
and suppose that the size of the colony triples in 24 days. If the initial size of the school
was 50, when will the school contain 200 fish? Enter your answer exactly in the form
a ln b
ln c .
The population of a certain region was 10 million in 1950. By 1970, it had increased to 13.5
million. Assuming exponential growth, estimate the population in the year 2000.
Enter your answer exactly in the form aec (no units).
Potassium has a half–life of 12 hours. How long will it take for a quantity of potassium to
decay to 1
10 its original size?
Enter your answer as a real number rounded to one decimal place (no units).
A parchment is offered for sale at a Paris flea market. The owner claims it is at least 2000
years old. However, a carbon–dating test shows that 14C–12C ratio for the manuscript is
95% of the corresponding ratio for currently manufactured parchment. How old is the
manuscript? (The decay constant of 14C is 0.00012)
Enter your answer exactly in the form lna
b (no units).