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Willard F. Libby: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from Willard F. Libby, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• A chemist worked out how to read the age of anything that was once alive

  Willard Libby showed in 1949 that living things absorb radioactive carbon-14 at a steady rate while alive, and that it then decays at a known pace after death. Measuring how much c…

  — Willard Libby, Radiocarbon Dating

• One chemist's measurement of radioactive decay let archaeologists date anything organic

  Willard Libby realised in the late 1940s that living things absorb a tiny, steady proportion of radioactive carbon-14 from the atmosphere, which then decays at a known rate after d…

  — Willard F. Libby, Radiocarbon Dating

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