How old is everything?

[Callahan79]

what is carbon dating and how does it work? Also, how far back can you date?

[j2buttonsw]

There are many isotopes of carbon (eg C-12, C-13 and C-14) and now there is a constant ratio of them (eg 99% C-12, 1% C-13 and <0.0000000001% C-14). C-14 is radioactive and will decay to N-14 and has a half life of 5730 years. The idea is that you can measure the ratio's of carbon from a specimen and correlate the loss of C-14 to how old it is. As you can see, it is not that accurate http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html

[brachiopod]

Great link ! Haven't laughed so much in ages.

Carboniferoous coal measures were formed by the flood..... oh dear.

[Gef]

The link contains a load of mince. Carbon dating is reasonably accurate for remains of once living materials up to about 40000 years old.