The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years. Assuming you start with 100% of carbon-14, what is the expression for the percent, P(t), of carbon-14 that remains in an organism that is t years old and what is the percent of carbon-14 remaining (rounded to the nearest whole percent) in an organism estimated to be 20,000 years old?
The general expression would be: [tex]P(t) = (\frac{1}{2})^{ \frac{t}{5730} } [/tex] In an organism that is 20,000 years old (t = 20000), we would expect: [tex]P(t) = (\frac{1}{2} )^( \frac{20000}{5730} ) = 0.08898[/tex] This menas there would be around 8.898% of carbon-14 remaining in the organism.
