Question About the Universe

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The most common impurity in diamond is nitrogen, which can comprise up to 1% of a diamond by mass

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The fact that nitrogen-14 is so abundant only helps my case. You see if the sample was contaminated by radiation it would cause a greater abundance of C-14. That contamination would be picked up easier because it would stand out more in the standard deviation.

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Only if your goal was to assert and be wrong. Don't you ever check anything?

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You see all your claims about radioactive contamination are just that, claims. Ever time a result is a little bit uncomfortable the knee jerk reaction is to attack the researcher, their methods, their world view on and on.My friend you win the battle only to lose the war.The problem with unlikely scenarios is that they are "unlikely".

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The variation is 14C levels in different rocks of the same basic age relative to 14C half-life correlates more with radioactive levels in surrounding rocks than with the age of the rocks.

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That is a ridiculous claim You might as well say all the surrounding rocks are radioactive, not just background but radioactive enough to cause contamination.

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Yes, graphite is used as a component of control rods. The carbon does not have a large cross section for absorption, but that is not it's function. Carbon acts as a moderator to slow down fast neutrons so that they are more readily captured by boron or material effective at neutron capture.

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Graphite was used primarily as a moderator in early and soviet style reactors. It was always considered too dangerous for use on a broad scale in the United States. I gave you the citation for the scramming rods/control rods.just say Zaius you are right.

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So, let me get this straight. You want to produce an extreme discrepancy with an insignificant process.
Do I have that right?

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That insignificant process, as you put it, changes the entire paradigm. Not by magnitude but by precedence. Edited by zaius137, : No reason given.

Nope. Not at all. The fact that the stable N-14 isotope is incorporated in the crystal lattices of diamonds when they crystallise, means that there's always a ready source of fresh C-14 in diamonds. And C-14 is not stable; it reverts back to N-14. We would thus expect to find fresh C-14 in diamonds, regardless of age. New, fresh C-14 formed regularly. C-14 has got a half-life. Thus, we would expect to find C-14 in diamonds. Regardless of age. It doesn't help your case at all. It's not contamination. It's fresh C-14. Doesn't matter what the deviation is; we expect to find fresh C-14 to detect in diamonds. Regardless of age. It doesn't help your case at all.

Diamonds already done.Ever been in a coal mine? Ever seen how wet the coal is? It's groundwater. And groundwater is replenished with fresh C-14 every time it rains. And that water gets adsorbed in the coal. Together with the C-14.And all those bacteria living in the coal. Another source of fresh C-14.Then also don't forget the N-14.Three reasons why we expect to find C-14 in coal. Regardless of the age.Also three reasons, amongst many others, why only creationists would try to carbon date coal and diamonds and expect a reliable date. They want to mislead people. Or the people who tried to carbon date diamonds and coal and expect a reliable date for the formation of these are either idiots or want to mislead people. My bet is both of these. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

No doubt that's a contributor, but the major contributors in the RATE studies were background and other contamination. They worked hard at eliminating one and only one source of contamination. RATE's Radiocarbon - Intrinsic or Contamination?.

Baumgardner who has no training or experience in 14C dating and avoidance of contamination and how to measure background, yeah, that's him. Of course you didn't. Morton's demon prevented you from seeing what was there. It's the opinion of a recognized expert in the field, and backed up by evidence. {ABE} I'm not sure if you are acknowledging Dr. Bertsche's (I spelled his name wrong earlier) expertise. He is a physics PhD from UC Berkeley, has conducted many 14C dating studies, and is currently at the Stanford Linear Accellerator. Oh, and he's a comitted evangelical Christian.{/ABE} Oh, certainly 14C was detected. That 14C has no significance as to the age of the samples, as Dr. Bertsche demonstrated.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Background radiation is everywhere, including in rocks and coal and diamonds.The issue is whether there's enough to cause the observed results. guesses by someone as ignorant as yourself are not evidence.It seems that in Baumgarrdner's studies in-situ production probably isn't the major source. Contamination and background are. remember this?

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Diamond is difficult to combust. The RATE samples apparently required modifications to the normal procedure [1], presumably higher combustion temperatures and longer combustion times, likely increasing the sample chemistry contamination. The samples were reportedly pitted and may have been subjected to previous analyses and to unknown contamination. Nevertheless, RATE’s five deep-mine diamond samples had radiocarbon levels only slightly above background (0.01 to 0.07 pMC after background subtraction), while the seven alluvial samples ranged from 0.03 to 0.31 pMC after background subtraction.

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Subsequently, the RATE team inserted diamond directly into an ion source, eliminating the sample chemistry, and measured much lower radiocarbon values, between 0.008 and 0.022 pMC, with a mean value of 0.014 pMC, apparently with no background subtraction [6]. This much lower value for unprocessed diamond provides strong evidence that their processed diamond samples had been contaminated, most likely by the modified sample chemistry.

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Taylor and Southon have also measured unprocessed diamond, finding a similar range of 0.005 to 0.03 pMC without background subtraction. They interpret this result as their instrument background, primarily due to ion source memory. Their ion source current varied, unintentionally, over about a factor of two, perhaps due to crystal face orientation or to conductivity differences between samples. The oldest 14C age equivalents were measured on natural diamonds which exhibited the highest current yields [4]. This important observation provides evidence about the source of the radiocarbon.

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If the radiocarbon were intrinsic to the sample, there would be no change in the radiocarbon ratio with sample current. The 14C, 13C, and 12C would change in unison. However, if the radiocarbon were coming from ion source memory or elsewhere in the accelerator, it should give a count rate independent of ion source current. Normalizing the radiocarbon count rate to the ion source current, which is predominantly 12C, would result in higher radiocarbon content for lower source currents, as observed. This data provides clear evidence that at least a significant fraction of the radiocarbon detected by Taylor and Southon in diamond measurements did not come from the diamonds themselves and thus could not be intrinsic radiocarbon.

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The lower values for unprocessed diamond and the current-dependent behavior find no explanation in Baumgardner’s intrinsic radiocarbon model. But these results fit well with the Taylor and Southon evidence that instrument background (specifically ion source memory) is material-dependent, with diamond exhibiting significantly less ion source memory than graphite. The radiocarbon detected in natural, unprocessed diamond measurements seems to be nothing more than instrument background.

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Depends on your definition of contamination. If "contamination" is non-age-significant 14C, then it's contamination.

Note that I edited my post to clarify what I meant, so that the paragraph now reads"The variation in 14C levels in different coal samples of the same basic age relative to 14C half-life correlates more with radioactive levels in surrounding rocks than with the age of the coal."Sorry for the mistake. Rocks are not dated with 14C because it is a method for dating organic matter that uses carbon including 14C during growth. Ah the old persecution paranoia. No, the reason is that those papers would not pass peer review because of their bad science, and he knows it. Probably as much as there is in carbon rods used in nuclear reactors. But much higher amounts of 14C are recorded in used rods. So we know that it would be highly unlikely that any coal, oil or diamonds that were near radioactive materials would have zero 14C. So am I, as that would be why he would have taken his samples came from areas with contamination from high background radiation, a detail that he would have to report in any paper to a peer reviewed science journal ... if he ever intended to make a real scientific report rather than just something to fool gullible people ignorant of alternate sources for 14C.Enjoy

OT, but it's hard to even find a lab to do K-Ar dating any more. By far the most widely used method over the past few decades is U-Pb concordia-discordia. Ar-Ar dating is also widely used. It's based on the decay of 40K but is much more robust than plain K-Ar dating.K-Ar is beloved by creationists because it is possible to get incorrect results, especially when committing deliberate fraud a la Snelling. We do know that most K-Ar results are accurate because of their consilience with other more robust methods. But real scientists have moved away from K-Ar.Your ignorance is showing.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Baumgardner isn't an idiot. He's done some good and significant mainstream work. His study of diamonds and coal is well outside his area of expertise, and it's possible (although I doubt it) that he did his best to produce an honest study but failed because of his lack of expertise.

I have already agreed that constants may not be absolute, but your line of thinking is going to take you places you don't want to go. Do you realize that all measurements have limits to precision? That's just the way it is in the real world. I can accept that the measured half-life of C14 has a +/- precision of 40 years. Does that really turn a 60ky old sample into a 6ky old sample?You are living in a fantasy world. I want a concrete explanation here. What makes the discrepancy significant in the sense of the age of the earth?The problem is that you are an absolutist, particularly when it comes to other people's assumptions and measurements. You don't question your own measurements or assumptions, do you?

You cannot possibly be this stupid. Did Baumgardner make this observation or not?The C-14 is produced regardless of the age of the diamond. It is produced solely by having the diamond near a radioactive source. Thus it completely explains why anyone might detect C-14 in a very old diamond.You have argued both that having no N-14 trapped in a diamond proves your case and that having a significant amount of N-14 in a diamond helps your case. Quite clearly one of those is wrong. So your position is that we should just accept bad research if it helps you?Let's make your own behavior here quite clear. Regardless of what can be concluded about the meaning of the N-14 in a diamond, your 'guess' that there was no significant N-14 is clearly wrong. Yet you cannot admit to making an error. Instead, you spin out an impossible, contradictory impression in an attempt to save Baumgardner's work. And then you impugn my motives?Well to avoid any need to guess, I'll tell you about my motivation. My primary motive is to expose the shyster behavior and google and guess 'research' that is your trademark. I really don't care about your opinion regarding the age of anything because you've already told us that you are not motivated by the evidence but by your world view.And you simply cannot post without providing me with such fodder, so keep up the good work. If i were you, I'd consider that when I responded to a NoNukes post. But it won't help. Because you are just as careless with everyone else, and there are plenty of people here who understand radiometric dating, or astronomy, or biology, or particle physics much better than I do.Keep positing bro. I'm not going to wind down.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.