March 4

Libby Discovers Time Measurement Atom

On this day in 1947, chemist Willard Libby discovered that the element called carbon-14 could be used to estimate the age of objects. Since all living things contain carbon-14 and begin to lose the element after they die, Libby determined that measuring the amount of carbon-14 in a fossil could give its age. His method, called radiocarbon dating or carbon-14 dating, has been useful to scientists studying dinosaurs, ancient man and the history of the earth. Libby received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960 for his discovery