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Comment Carbon dating... (Score 1) 336

ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_datingrel=url2html-21275http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating> only works for things up to ~50,000 years old, so it wasn't used for those old rocks. For things older than ~100,000 years folks use ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-argon_datingrel=url2html-21275http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-argon_dating>. The applicable time period is based on the half-life of the isotope. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 years while Potassium-40's is 1.248e9 years.

Comment Re:Take that china (Score 1) 183

Copernicium is named after Copernicus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicium#Naming; regarded as the father of modern astronomy and whose heliocentric model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_Revolution is considered as a crucial starting point of the Scientific Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution

Copper is apparently from the Latin cuprum, which is from the word cyprian, a more general word for copper and bronze alloys, itself derived from the name of the island Cyprus where the metal was mined. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=copper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper#Antiquity_and_Middle_Ages

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