Emilio Segrè asserted in his autobiography that Enrico Fermi suggested the concept to Libby at a seminar in Chicago that year.

Radiocarbon dating (usually referred to simply as carbon-14 dating) is a radiometric dating method.

It uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 (14C) to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years old. Carbon-14 has a relatively short half-life of 5,730 years, meaning that the fraction of carbon-14 in a sample is halved over the course of 5,730 years due to radioactive decay to nitrogen-14.

They found a form, isotope, of Carbon that contained 8 neutrons and 6 protons.

Using this finding Willard Libby and his team at the University of Chicago proposed that Carbon-14 was unstable and underwent a total of 14 disintegrations per minute per gram.

They have masses of 13 and 14 respectively and are referred to as "carbon-13" and "carbon-14." If two atoms have equal numbers of protons but differing numbers of neutrons, one is said to be an "isotope" of the other.

Carbon-13 and carbon-14 are thus isotopes of carbon-12.

The pathway from the plant to the molecule may have been indirect or lengthy, involving multiple physical, chemical, and biological processes.

Levels of C can represent either mixtures of modern and dead carbon or carbon that was fixed from the atmosphere less than 50,000 years ago.

In contrast, living material exhibit an activity of 14 d/min.g.

Thus, using Equation $$\ref$$, $\ln \dfrac = (1.21 \times 10^) t \nonumber$ Thus, $t= \dfrac = 2 \times 10^3 \text \nonumber$ From the measurement performed in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were determined to be 2000 years old giving them a date of 53 BC, and confirming their authenticity.

Along with hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, carbon is a building block of biochemical molecules ranging from fats, proteins, and carbohydrates to active substances such as hormones.