The discovery of a mysterious artifact can arouse curiosity and theories of all kinds in individuals who hear about it. Often the artifact can become a legend, as shown by the discovery of the Shroud of Turin. This relic was believed to be the burial cloth of the biblical Jesus Christ, but the validity of this theory is the subject of much debate. Thanks to advances in archaeology, information has been provided on methods that can be used to date certain objects, such as this fabric. Care in using archaeological dating methods is essential to the accuracy of the results produced. Many of these archaeological techniques have been discovered and improved over the past hundred years. One of the most well-known methods used to date organic, living, and formerly living materials is carbon dating. Carbon-14 dating has allowed archaeologists to discover a technique for dating materials several thousand years old. Using this relatively new dating method, archaeologists have been able to date certain artifacts more precisely than ever before. To understand the significant impacts this method has had on archaeology, it is essential to understand what carbon-14 is, how carbon-14 dating works, how it is calibrated, and how it is measured. The periodic table of elements contains one hundred and eighteen elements. elements (tables). Each element contains extremely small particles called electrons, neutrons and protons. Whenever an element has a different number of neutrons than the standard element, the distinct forms of the element are called isotopes. Carbon-14 is just an isotope of carbon found in our atmosphere. Fifteen isotopes of this atom actually exist, but the three types that occur most commonly are carbon-12, carbon-13,...... middle of paper ......h cesium ions, and then the focus in a fast moving beam. The ions produced become negative, which avoids the confusion of carbon-14 with nitrogen-14 since nitrogen has no negative ions. The first magnet is used to select ions with an atomic mass of fourteen. The ions then enter the accelerator. As they move towards the terminal, they are accelerated to incredible speed. So when they collide with the gas molecules, all the molecular ions are broken up and most carbon ions have four electrons removed, turning them into Carbon3+ ions. The second magnet selects ions with the expected velocity for the Carbon-14 ion and a filter ensures that their momentum is also correct. Finally, the filtered carbon-14 ions enter the detector where their speed and energy are checked so that the number of carbon-14 ions in the sample can be counted (Oxford).