Ribh's D'Coopage

[Ribh]

Meanwhile I am trying to get up the courage to submit my next assignment. I am no scientist & sound like a 2 year old trying to explain calculus to a Mathematician!

It is all about carbon dating & the truth is I don't understand the details. I do get the big picture ~ then went of @ a tangent because I found something to read that I could understand & is the reason I am studying archaeology. Who knew Neanderthal Iraquis used green eyeshadow & kohl?! Like...Really?!!!

An awful lot of the archaeology is going right over my head ~ not helped that we have an eminent scholar in metallurgy who has been on the Tell Abraq dig ~ you know, chemistry stuff.
Ha'penny has made a hole in the lawn for dustbathing & looking a little worse for wear in her moult. Chickens are easier to understand...​

 

[MaryJanet]

Peggy has been wearing one tail feather for a while, her horizontal one! But the new ones are coming along nicely and soon she'll have a full tail again.

 

[Ribh]

CATURDAY, CATURDAY.
The difference between Kirby & Marlow in a nutshell.
They both like to sleep on my bed whether I'm in it or not.
Kirby tucks himself into a ball behind my pillows & 1/2 hidden from sight where he feels safe & protected but can still see & hear everything that's going on.

Marlow sprawls in the middle of the bed & lets it all hang out.
He's actually got himself tucked along my thigh here & still managed to sprawl.

 

[rjohns39]

Good evening folks

 

[Grammy60]

Good evening everyone

 

[MaryJanet]

Meanwhile I am trying to get up the courage to submit my next assignment. I am no scientist & sound like a 2 year old trying to explain calculus to a Mathematician!

It is all about carbon dating & the truth is I don't understand the details. I do get the big picture ~ then went of @ a tangent because I found something to read that I could understand & is the reason I am studying archaeology. Who knew Neanderthal Iraquis used green eyeshadow & kohl?! Like...Really?!!!

An awful lot of the archaeology is going right over my head ~ not helped that we have an eminent scholar in metallurgy who has been on the Tell Abraq dig ~ you know, chemistry stuff.
Ha'penny has made a hole in the lawn for dustbathing & looking a little worse for wear in her moult. Chickens are easier to understand...​

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How's your writing on carbon dating going?

The only thing I know about it is that it tells how old something is (within a margin of error which I believe is wider if the something is older) through looking at the carbon in that thing and seeing how decayed it is. Am I in the ballpark??

 

[Ribh]

How's your writing on carbon dating going?

The only thing I know about it is that it tells how old something is (within a margin of error which I believe is wider if the something is older) through looking at the carbon in that thing and seeing how decayed it is. Am I in the ballpark??

You're asking me? I think you're in the ball park. I'm serious when I say I'm no scientist. The graphs & things are goobly~gook to me. Where I can steer away from the scientific jargon I can make sense of things. I get if you put eye~shadow in a clam shell you can't then use the shell for carbon dating as it is contaminated. lol But they will rabbit on about isotopic exchanges I do also get that the jargon is needed to be very specific but wading through it is a nightmare. Even with the lectures & lecture notes & dictionary to hand it is problematic. I have no science background @ all. I only did very elementary science @ high school & that was a very long time ago. My math, quite literally, is non~existant ~ & I have a physical reaction to it. It really does make me ill so I am paddling round trying to find other ways to make this work for me. Some people are brilliant @ explaining difficult concepts really simply & where I can find them I am using them.

I am not overly stressing. I know I've understood some of it & the archaeology I am doing for love. I'm not looking for employment in the field. A pass will do me just fine.

 

[MaryJanet]

You're asking me? I think you're in the ball park. I'm serious when I say I'm no scientist. The graphs & things are goobly~gook to me. Where I can steer away from the scientific jargon I can make sense of things. I get if you put eye~shadow in a clam shell you can't then use the shell for carbon dating as it is contaminated. lol But they will rabbit on about isotopic exchanges I do also get that the jargon is needed to be very specific but wading through it is a nightmare. Even with the lectures & lecture notes & dictionary to hand it is problematic. I have no science background @ all. I only did very elementary science @ high school & that was a very long time ago. My math, quite literally, is non~existant ~ & I have a physical reaction to it. It really does make me ill so I am paddling round trying to find other ways to make this work for me. Some people are brilliant @ explaining difficult concepts really simply & where I can find them I am using them.

I am not overly stressing. I know I've understood some of it & the archaeology I am doing for love. I'm not looking for employment in the field. A pass will do me just fine.

I have a hunch isotopic exchanges are how the carbon decays. It exchanges its isotopes with other stuff around about, like soil and plants. Does that seem right to you?? I think I must've got these hunches from watching Time Team

 

[Ribh]

I have a hunch isotopic exchanges are how the carbon decays. It exchanges its isotopes with other stuff around about, like soil and plants. Does that seem right to you?? I think I must've got these hunches from watching Time Team

Hmmm.... I thought it just decayed...The rate of decay reduces the amount of carbon which is measurable ~ which requires math I don't have. Any exchange becomes a containment because different substances start with different amounts of carbon which decay @ different rates. Like I said... I so appreciate that some people's minds work in ways that make sense of this stuff.

 

[RoyalChick]

I have a hunch isotopic exchanges are how the carbon decays. It exchanges its isotopes with other stuff around about, like soil and plants. Does that seem right to you?? I think I must've got these hunches from watching Time Team

I think isotopic exchange is the basis on which carbon dating works. While something is alive the regular carbon in its body swaps out with radioactive carbon because it breathes and eats. When it dies it stops taking in more radioactive carbon and so that carbon's radioactivity dies out (really, really slowly) and by measuring how much is left you can tell how long ago something died.
The way the radioactive carbon gets into the body is by trading places with regular carbo and I believe that 'trading places' is what is called isotopic exchange.
And now I will shut up because if I am wrong I don't want to get @Ribh in trouble with her paper!