Often there are reports of the age of a historic building or the age of a wooden tool found in archaeological excavation or the age of a mummy found. They are claimed to be, for example, two thousand or five thousand years old. Scientists and archaeologists use the carbon-14 method for such age calculations. With this method, the age of an object found or investigated up to an average of fifty thousand years is determined. This method is also used to determine the age of objects that have recently been used, such as a human bone, clothing, wood and plant fibers.

Many cosmic rays enter the atmosphere that envelops the world atmospherically every day. For example, a human being is exposed to about half a million cosmic ray strikes in one hour. Cosmic rays are formed mainly by atoms colliding in the atmosphere. These collisions occur with nitrogen atoms in energetic neutrons. During the neutron collision, a nitrogen-14 atom (7 proton and 7 neutron) is converted to a carbon-14 atom (6 proton and 8 neutron) and a hydrogen atom (1 proton and 0 neutron). The carbon-14 atom is a radioactive atom with a half-life average of 5700 years.

These carbon-14 atoms formed by cosmic rays combine with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. As is known, carbon dioxide is passed to the plant fibers by photosynthesis by the plants. When humans and animals consume these plants, the carbon-14 atom is passed on to humans and animals.

At any given time, the ratio of the carbon-14 atoms in the body to the carbon-12 atoms in the air is constant, and the organisms carry the same amount of carbon-14 atoms. However, the new carbon-14 entry to the body stops as soon as living things die. In this case, the ratio of carbon-12 atoms to carbon-14 atoms at the time of death is the same for every living thing, but with death carbon-14 atoms begin to decay. Therefore, while the amount of carbon-12 remains constant, the amount of carbon-14 decreases gradually. By looking at the ratio of carbon-12 atoms to carbon-14 atoms in the sample and comparing this ratio with a living organism, the age of the sample object can be determined very precisely. With the help of certain formulas, for example, if an object contains carbon-10 in percent 14 compared to a living sample, the age of that object is calculated as 18,940.

As mentioned above, the half-life of carbon-14 atoms is 5700 years, and with this method, age calculations up to a thousand years of 60 give reliable results. However, in addition to carbon-14, other radioactive elements such as potassium, uranium and thorium are used for this purpose. Although the age of biological and geological objects can be determined by using different radio isotopes like these, it is doubtful that these methods will give healthy results in the future. Nuclear bombs, nuclear reactors and nuclear tests, especially since the 1940 years, are of concern.

The so-called carbon-14 or radiocarbon technique was invented by the American chemist Libby in 1949, and this invention earned him a Nobel Prize. In this way, great progress has been made in the studies on prehistoric times and the age of the world has been recalculated. With this method, the age of prehistoric settlements in Africa and Russia is calculated as 50 thousand. The age of the city of Jericho in Palestine is calculated as 11 thousand years. With the present invention, archaeologists and paleontologists have achieved more accurate results.

Today, many laboratories are accredited with carbon-14 method wet tests are performed. The main standard used in these tests is:

• Biological based carbon content - Determination of biocompatible carbon content by using radiocarbon method