Why would it be difficult to date an item that was 1000000

Question

1. Change all of the trial numbers on your graph to years, based on one trial occurring every 5730 years (the half-life of Carbon¹⁴)

2. If the Atoms represent Carbon¹⁴ atoms, how long (in years) would it have taken for:

a.1/2 of the Carbon¹⁴ atoms to decay?

b. 90% of the Carbon¹⁴ atoms to decay?

Synthesis Questions:

3. You are a historian and discover a long lost scroll. You run some tests on this scroll and discover that 87.5% of the Carbon¹⁴ that was originally present has decayed. Use your graph to estimate how many years have passed since the scroll was created.

4. Why would it be difficult to date an item that was 1,000,000 years old using this technique?

5. Why would it be difficult to date an item that was only 12 years old using carbon dating?