Posted by  Prakash N. Swamy on April 16, 2004 at 07:25:01:

In Reply to:  Re: Fact about Taj Mahal - India posted by girish on October 13, 2001 at 01:11:11:

"Carbon dating will only reveal how old the wood in a door is, not how long ago the door was carved. In other words, if a 300 year old tree was felled to carve the Taj door, it would register as a 600 year old piece of wood today."

The above statement is imprecise and false. Carbon dating or C-14 dating or radiocarbon dating as it is more accurately called determines the proportion of the C-14 isotope present in any organic carbon-containing sample. The C-14 percentage is a maximum just before the sample stops converting N-14 to C-14, i.e. just before the living organism dies. From the time of its death onwards, the proportion of C-14 diminishes exponentially becauses C-14 is a radioactive isotope. By determining the radioactivity due to C-14 emitted from the carbon-containing sample - in this case part of a wooden door - it is therefore possible to say fairly precisely how long ago the tree from which this door was made was felled. It says nothing for the age of the tree at the time of felling. As for when the door was constructed, one has to assume that the tree was felled just before and not left to rot for a couple of hundred years before someone decided to make a door from it.

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