TheFall-OutandC 14

For the world's generals and statesmen, the radioactive "fallout" from nuclear explosions is a grave worry for the future. For scientists who date ancient objects by Carbon 14. it is already a serious nuisance and threatens to get worse. Southwestern laboratories near the Nevada atom-bomb testing ground have found it impossible to use Carbon 14; there is too much competing radioactivity in their vicinity. Even on the Eastern seaboard, Carbon 14 work at the University of Pennsylvania has often been stopped by a radioactive cloud drifting slowly overhead. The "background radiation" gets so strong that the voice of Carbon 14, like a soprano in a boiler factory, cannot be heard above it.

The clouds pass by, but they leave radioactive particles that work their way into the samples the scientists are trying to test in their laboratories. The particles have not been strong enough, so far, to be dangerous to human health, but they make the delicate apparatus give false readings.

As a result, scientists have already begun to make corrections. Background radiation, if not too powerful, can be screened away by more elaborate shielding. Samples to be tested can be purified by turning their carbon into a gas that leaves the fallout particles behind. Most of the laboratories are already planning to shift to the gaseous method, which has other advantages also. But if bigger bombs are tested in larger numbers, scientists may have to abandon their cherished system of Carbon 14 dating.

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