# Logarithms, Part 5

I never thought these posts would get to 5.

Now I said I would do a population problem but I have decided to go with a radioactive decay problem instead. I will use the example of carbon dating as this is based on radioactive decay. But first, let’s look at the general equation for exponential decay:

${A}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{A}_{0}{e}^{{-}{kt}}$

This formula gives the amount of something that is decreasing exponentially. A is the amount left after t seconds, hours, days, years or whatever depending on the value of the rate of decrease factor which is k. A0 is the amount of something we started out with, the amount present at t = 0. This formula makes sense when you look at the ekt part of the equation.

Now I have talked about e before. It is an irrational number, like 𝜋, and is approximately equal to 2.7183. k is a rate of decrease factor that depends on the material we are working with and the units of time t. The –kt part, the exponent of e, is a negative number since k and t are positive. I have explained negative exponents before but ekt equals 1/ekt . Now what happens to ekt as t gets large? Any number greater than 1 (which e is) raised to a larger and larger power, gets very big. And when you divide a big number into 1, you get a very small number. So A0 is being multiplied by a number that gets smaller and smaller as time goes on. That is why A, the amount of material, is exponentially decreasing.

With that as a background, let’s talk about carbon dating. Any living thing has carbon in it. Indeed, all life on earth is carbon-based which means that the the molecules essential for life are composed of lots of carbon. Now carbon comes in different “flavors”. These flavors are called isotopes and carbon has two main isotopes: carbon 12 the most abundant and non-radioactive, and carbon 14 which is radioactive. Fortunately, the amount of carbon 14 is very small – about 1 atom to every 1012 atoms of carbon 12. However, in living things, this ratio is pretty much constant since carbon 14 is continually made in our atmosphere. But once something dies, the carbon 14 is not replenished and the amount present at the time of death starts decreasing.

So carbon dating is a process of determining the amount of carbon 14 left in a once living object then calculating the time it would take to have that much carbon 14 left.

So let’s go back to our equation for exponential decay. In order to use this equation for carbon dating, we need to know what k is for carbon 14. Now we know that the half-life of carbon 14 is 5700 years which means that given any amount of carbon 14, only half that amount will be left in 5700 years due to radioactive decay. So let’s use this fact to calculate k.

Taking this information and putting it into our equation results in

${0}{.}{5}{A}_{0}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{A}_{0}{e}^{{-}{k}\times{5700}}$

So the left side shows that there is half (0.5) the initial amount and the right side shows that this occurs in 5700 years. So now, I will take the loge (abbreviated as ln) of both sides. Note that since e is the base on the right side, taking the log to that base just results in the exponent –kt. Also note that A0 appears on both sides of the equation, so we can divide both sides of the equation by A0 which makes A0 disappear:

$\begin{array}{l} {{0}{.}{5}{A}_{0}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{A}_{0}{e}^{{-}{k}\times{5700}}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\Longrightarrow\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}{0}{.}{5}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{e}^{{-}{k}\times{5700}}}\\ {\Longrightarrow\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\ln{(}{0}{.}{5}{)}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\ln{(}{e}^{{-}{k}\times{5700}}{)}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{-}{k}\times{5700}}\\ {\Longrightarrow\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}{-}{0}{.}{6931}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{-}{k}\times{5700}}\\ {\Longrightarrow{k}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{{-}{0}{.}{6931}}{5700}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{0}{.}{0001216}} \end{array}$

So now that we know what k is, we can use the following equation to do our carbon dating:

${A}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{A}_{0}{e}^{{-}{0}{.}{0001216}{t}}$

So let’s say a fossil has 35% (0.35) of its original carbon 14 when it died. How old is the fossil?

$\begin{array}{l} {{0}{.}{35}{A}_{0}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{A}_{0}{e}^{{-}{0}{.}{0001216}{t}}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\Longrightarrow\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}{0}{.}{35}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{e}^{{-}{0}{.}{0001216}{t}}}\\ {\Longrightarrow\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\ln{(}{0}{.}{35}{)}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\ln{(}{e}^{{-}{0}{.}{0001216}{t}}{)}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{-}{0}{.}{0001216}{t}}\\ {\Longrightarrow\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}{-}{1}{.}{0498}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{-}{0}{.}{0001216}{t}}\\ {\Longrightarrow{t}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{{-}{1}{.}{0498}}{{-}{0}{.}{0001216}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{8633}\hspace{0.33em}{\mathrm{years}}} \end{array}$

We have a lot of birthdays to catch up on!