radioactive dating
1
4.8
- noun
- /ˌreɪdiəʊˈæktɪv ˈdeɪtɪŋ/
- Specialized
:
datación por radiocarbono
- Radioactive dating of meteorites shows that the solar system, and thus the Sun, is 4.6 billion years old.
- used radioactive dating
Looking at radioactive dating, which tells us about old rocks and and also about events of more recent history.
- Looking at radioactive dating, which tells us about old rocks and and also about events of more recent history.
Examples
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And then there's radioactive dating, a method that has been developed and tested for more than a hundred years now and gives very reliable data about the age of the material probed.
Blog text (14) -
The age of the artifact was confirmed through radioactive dating, which showed it was over 2,000 years old.
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Looking at radioactive dating, which tells us about old rocks and and also about events of more recent history.
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Precisions of 1% or better are standard for many radioactive dating methods.
Blog text (5) -
Radioactive dating, confirmed by what the constellations as viewed from Earth would look like in another five billion years.
Fiction book (2000) -
Scientists calculated the age of ancient fossils using radioactive dating to measure the amount of carbon-14 they contained.
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By applying radioactive dating techniques to the rock layers, researchers were able to accurately estimate when the volcano last erupted.
Synonyms
5
3.8
A way to find the age of old bones, wood, or cloth by measuring carbon-14
2
4.4
A way to find the age of objects that were once alive by measuring how much carbon-14 they have
1
3.9
A way to find how old something that used to live is by measuring its radioactive carbon
How Precise
- Specialized
2
4.4
- Specialized
1
4.8
- Specialized
49
7.4
370
2.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from 'radioactive' (using radiation/unstable nuclei) + 'dating' (determining age): it denotes determining age by radioactive methods. This noun phrase follows a transparent modifier+noun pattern and has clear equivalents in other languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituent senses (or sees minimal context) will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Radioactive dating comes from using a material's natural radioactivity as a tiny, steady 'clock' inside objects. Scientists measure how much of a radioactive atom like carbon-14 has broken down to work out the 'age' of bones or rocks, so the phrase means 'finding how old something is'.