Where Atoms Come From 'We Are All Star Stuff'

According to Carolyn Ruth, author of “Where Do Chemical Elements Come From,” chemical elements came from the explosion of stars, also known as supernovas. In her article, Carolyn states that a newborn star is mainly composed of the first element on the periodic table, Hydrogen. Due to the high pressure within the star, a fusion process begins that fuses two protons and two neutrons together to form the second element, Helium. These fusion processes continue to form elements that weigh less than Iron. Once the star creates all elements up to Iron, the star eventually collapses and explodes. One article that agrees with Carolyn’s theory is “The Origin of the Elements and the Life of A Star”. According to this article, stars produce nuclear reactions

Iron is the fourth common element. It can be found in Earth's crust and core. There is an abundant amount of iron that can be found in the stars.

Encyclopaedia Britannica also states that it is “proved to be a versatile technique of dating fossils and archaeological specimens from 500 to 50,000 years old” (1998). This method of age determination is dependent upon the decay of nitrogen and radiocarbon (Carbon-14) (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011). Carbon-14 is continually formed in nature by the interaction of neutrons with nitrogen-14 in the Earth’s atmosphere (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011) and all living things exchange the gas carbon-14 with the atmosphere surrounding them. The amount of carbon-14 exchanged into the living organism is perfectly balanced with its surroundings, but when an organism dies, they stop taking in the gas and that equilibrium is damaged. Because Carbon-14 slowly decays at a known rate called its “half-life” in a dead organism, scientists can figure out how long ago it had stopped exchanging carbon with its atmosphere. Thus, its age can be determined by measuring the amount of Carbon-14 in a sample (Hirst, 2017; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2017; Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit Research Laboratory for Archaeology, n.d.; Earthsky, 2017; Cram, 1993). With the utilisation of Radiocarbon Dating, scientists have been able to discover that Lindow

Until the early 1900's, scientists used several methods of measurement in their efforts to determine the age of the Earth. They studied sedimentation and erosion, stratification (with fossil evidence), measured the salinity of the oceans, and used thermodynamics to determine loss of heat since the Earth's beginning. Each of these approaches yielded estimates that the Earth was anywhere from 24 to 100 million years old.

2. Given that the half-life of the radioisotope carbon-14 is 5730 years, how useful do you think this isotope would be for dating bones that are over a million years old?

The changes that occur during a star 's life are called stellar evolution. The mass of a star determines the ultimate fate of a star. Stars that are more massive burn their fuel quicker and lead shorter lives. Because stars shine, they must change. The energy they lose by emitting light must come from the matter of which the star is made. This will lead to a change in its composition. Stars are formed from the material between stars, shine until they exhaust their fuel, and then die a predictable death based upon their initial mass.

This is a comparative essay and its purpose is to compare old-Earth and young-Earth viewpoints on Dating the rocks of the Grand Canyon. There are different views on this and no scientific method that can prove (completely) the age of the universe or the earth. There are the use of different types of calculations that can provide some guesses on the age of the earth. Many things need to be assumed such as a beginning date and the speed of change along with varying increases and decreases of material over time. “Young-Earth Creationism” (YEC) is based on a precept that earth and the universe were created by God, only 6,000 years ago in six days. Their position is that by examining geological records the scientific details of

8. Is it important to know exactly how old the earth is? Why or why not?

L. Vardiman, A.A. Snelling and E.F. Chaffin (Eds.), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California, and Creation Research Society, St. Joseph, Missouri, 2000.

In 1820 another French man named James Fourier took the next step in estimating the Earth’s age. He accounted for the fact that the Earth is still hot in its core and using mathematical techniques that he developed and we still use today for time-varying phenomena, came up with a number too staggering foe him to write down. He did however leave us his equations and it is easy to plug in the same numbers and get the answer that he could not say, which comes out to be 100 million years. (Gribbin, 16)

Before the discovery of radiometric methods to determine the age of the Earth, the first few attempts were off by thousands of millions

Supernovas are the explosion of a star when it reaches the end of its life. There are two ways a star can go supernova. The first way or a Type I supernova occurs in the Binary system which is when two stars orbit the same point. The two stars are a white dwarf and a red giant. A white dwarf is a small dense star that is around the size of a planet and a red giant is a star at its last stages of life. If these two stars are close enough, matter will be transferred to the white dwarf from the red giant. When the star’s core reaches its limit of matter, a thermonuclear detonation will occur leaving nothing behind unless there were leftover elements in the white dwarf or there were elements made in the supernova explosion. One of the elements made in the explosion is radioactive nickel.

This method is used to determine the exact age of fossils, artifacts and the earth. This involves, examining several strata of the crust of the earth to show the time intervals of one layer of rock to another layer as well as use the layering principle to confirm the series of cultures.

This changed history forever. While it created controversy, due to some people’s attachments to the old ways of dating and doubts in this revolutionary method, it proved to be the closest method to have an accurate chronology of history. In 1955, to prove the accuracy or radiocarbon, Libby published a graph that showed the comparison of the results of radiocarbon dating of specimens from Egypt. These specimens had already an absolute known date. The graph proved the accuracy of Libby’s radiocarbon dating. Figure 1 (Renfrew, 1973)

Other samples of the clay were taken to laboratories to be analyzed. Part of the results showed a large concentration of platinum and iridium. These elements are very rare on the surface of the earth at the moment but they are present in meteoric dust that rains down from space at a known rate. That rate allowed for a measurement of how long it took for the clay to form.