What is carbon 14?
it is something you take in your body throughout your life. it is merely another isotope but an unstable one.
What is a radiocarbon date?
a radiocaron date is the age of an item measured by the remaining c-14 isotopes left in its body (only organic material can be measured this way) unfortunately, this system is based upon an assumption
Is it the same as a calendar date?
no. though years are used to present the final date it really has nothing in common with the calendar system
What does radiocarbon dating measure and why does it take a long time?
it measures c-14 in an organic object. not sure what you mean by your second question there.
How does an accelerator mass spectrometer measure carbon isotopes
it merely counts the number of isotopes present as it goes through a process hope the link helps
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070810000413AAaGE9LWhat can you date with radiocarbon?
animals, plants and people.
now a word of caution. c-14 dating is built upon an assumption. this assumption assumes that we already know how much carbon 14 the deceased started with but in reality we can never know. i do not agree with the claims that we can go back 50-100,000 years with c-14 dating as the half life does not really support that contention. many scientists use calibrators to push back the dates but those calibrators have their own set of problems as well. items t be dated need t be contaminate free and that is not always easy to find.
anothe rproblem is how constant is that decay rate? if a human is torn apart by animals or machinery does each individual piece decay at the same rate? hard to say and it is very unlikely that they do and if bits an dpieces are lost or eaten, then the total amount of beginning c-14 is diminished, skewing the results in the modern age.