Talk:Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 8, 2015.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
August 10, 2014	Peer review	Reviewed
April 12, 2015	Featured article candidate	Promoted

Current status: Featured article

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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cal BP

Neither this article nor the article Calibration of radiocarbon dates mentions the abbreviation "cal BP", also written as "calBP". Is it standard? I have seen it often. Also, does the "cal" stand for "calibrated" or "calendar (years)"? Both interpretations are possible and make sense, after all. Is there an "official" expansion? Any statement in the literature? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:21, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it should be included. My understanding is that "cal BP" means "calibrated age expressed in years before AD 1950". There is also "cal kyr BP" which is the same but expressed in thousands of years. Zero^talk 22:17, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a sentence about this to the section "Reporting dates". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References should be called References, not Footnotes Suggestion

The article's headings can be a named a number of different titles, but it should match the common naming for science articles since this is an important article. According to the Council of Science Editors, the list of works cited should be called "References". The list of books should be called Bibliography. Frmorrison (talk) 20:55, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I brought this up at the PR. I also think "References" would be better than "Footnotes" - and having both "Notes" and "Footnotes" seems very odd to me. Aa77zz (talk) 21:57, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the existing titles, but if nobody else comments in a few days then I've no problem with changing them. Is there a consensus on WP anywhere about this? I've mostly written humanities articles so perhaps that's why the current titles look more natural to me. I can see the point re "Notes" and "Footnotes"; I've seen this done as "Notes" and "Citations" (e.g. at Middle Ages) and as "Endnotes" and "Notes" (can't quickly find an example). Looking through FAs for both science and humanities articles I see a great deal of variation on these headings. I'm used to seeing "References" as the list of sources used in an article; what I don't like about "Bibliography" is that in cases where the subject of the article has published works, that's the natural title for a section listing them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You could name the current "References" section "Further reading" instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frmorrison (talk • contribs) 15:43, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Planning to take this to FAC

I am planning to nominate this as a featured article candidate some time in the next month or so. I am going through Taylor & Bar-Yosef's Radiocarbon Dating to see what changes need to be made, but so far have found little that needs to be updated. I've also asked another editor to do a copyedit; and I'll wait till the section naming question is settled before nominating. I've asked three archaeologists, including a radiocarbon specialist, to look over the article and comment, and I've had some useful feedback from them; I may still get a little more off-wiki. Is there anything else that looks to be necessary before a nomination? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:50, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Limited Test Ban Treaty

Ref. 29 was: "Limited Test Ban Treaty". Science Magazine. Retrieved July 26, 2013. but the url pointed to [1] - a web page entitled "Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water" from the US Department of State. This seems a solid source. I've changed the cite to this page. Aa77zz (talk) 13:52, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Et al.

I noticed this edit to Radiocarbon dating: [2] and the accompanying edit summary. I just want to point out that, according to WP:Manual of Style#Miscellaneous shortenings, "et al." should only be used in references and should not be italicized. See the table in "Miscellaneous shortenings" and compare to cf. and viz., which are italicized. CorinneSD (talk) 15:13, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing this out. I've now removed the italics from all the "et al." and substituted "coworkers" in the body of the article. I struggled to follow your MOS link but found it on different page: WP:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Miscellaneous_shortenings. Aa77zz (talk) 15:47, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Archaeology

I see this edit to the Archaeology section, second paragraph in the Interpretation sub-section: [3]. I'm glad et al. was changed back to "et al.", but "coworkers" should be "co-workers". However, I thought before I change it I would ask whether "colleagues" might be more appropriate here. It depends upon the particular relationship between Higham and the others. CorinneSD (talk) 16:54, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you prefer "co-workers" please go ahead and change the article but I believe both forms are acceptable - for example see the Merriam-Webster definition here. I don't have a strong preference. To me the word "colleagues" implies that the authors are from the same institution and work together. Note that the Nature article has a large number of authors that come from many different institutions. It is very likely that they don't all know one another. Aa77zz (talk) 17:36, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding "coworkers" vs. "co-workers", it may be true that both spellings are acceptable, but I think "coworkers" slows the reader down because he or she has to figure out that it's "co" and not "cow", so I much prefer the hyphenated spelling. Regarding "colleagues", a colleague can simply be a person who works in the same field. See [4]. The main definition is, "an associate in a profession or in a civil or ecclesiastical office". Sometimes, people who work in the same profession but in different institutions/universities collaborate on research and on writing and publishing the results. They would be colleagues. A co-worker would be a person who works in the same company or organization, regardless of the position that each holds. - CorinneSD (talk) 20:42, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a hyphen. I also considered "collaborators" but this term may not be appropriate for the three co-authors that work in Higham's lab. Aa77zz (talk) 21:27, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Two Creeks

Seems there is a problem, an error in the reference. Two Creeks Buried Forest State Natural Area is in Wisconsin on the west shore of Lake Michigan. However the reference states Two Creeks, Minnesota, (USA), a locality on the western shore of Lake Michigan Taylor & Bar-Yosef (2014) p. 35. As it is an obvious error, I'll change it & make the link blue. Vsmith (talk) 12:56, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

About to go get on a plane, but the source does say Minnesota -- I double-checked. I'll see if I can find the original paper when I get back. Looks like my secondary source is in error. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:42, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not everyone is convinced ..

"Radioactivity did not exist in earlier times and could not therefore be discovered. It has only existed for a few thousand years, because now the atoms split up more and more."

Rudolf Steiner, 1905-10-05 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.66.108.229 (talk) 19:10, 6 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think you'll need a better source than a mystic, philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist (to quote our article) - he was clearly not a physicist. Mikenorton (talk) 19:17, 6 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

'Accelerator Mass Spectrometry' subheading added

I have added a subheading, coordinate with "Beta Counting" down below, for 'Accelerator Mass Spectrometry', which seems clearly needed. Because this is a change to today's Good Article, I have limited my edit to the heading, but probably the order of the 'Beta Counting' and 'Accelerator Mass Spectrometry' sections should be reversed.