Never mind the inherent impossibility: Carbon dating anything would be dubious evidence of time travel. Well, maybe an artifact in distinctive and recent style--a Shaker lemon-reamer or Louis XIV chair--that carbon-dated as thousands of years old could be evidence.
*nod* That was the second thing that struck me, in between shouting at the television and grabbing the keyboard. But then I figured that could be retconned by saying that they had some other means of absolutely, positively authenticating the date of the gold, in which case the (*wince*) "carbon dating" (gee, it hurts to type that in context) saying it was too new would be the giveaway.
... Even though in every realistic scenario I can imagine, they would have taken such a discrepancy as a sign that the other authentication had been somehow forged.
The third thing that occurred to me was that I thought carbon dating wasn't useful over time periods as short as 150 years -- the gold in the movie was supposed to have been from the American Civil War -- but a) I might have misremembered that, and b) it's a science fiction movie so maybe they'd made some SFnal advances in that technology.
So they blew the science inexcusably at a seventh-grade level (if not lower), blew the logic in a way they could've rationalized by adding extra plot complexity, and maybe blew the technology as well ...
Three strikes, in one line -- one set-up-the-background-so-we-can-start-the-plot line -- of dialogue. Kinda painful.
You are right, something as recent as the American Civil War would not be carbon datable. Radiocarbon dating is one good for 300 to 50K years. (although dates of up to 75K BP have been recorded, things are changing daily) Mostly I think it's because of the Industrial Revolution which started shortly after the Civil War and really changed the amount of carbon in the atmosphere which skews the C14 absorbtion and decay in objects that absorb it.
(no subject)
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... Even though in every realistic scenario I can imagine, they would have taken such a discrepancy as a sign that the other authentication had been somehow forged.
The third thing that occurred to me was that I thought carbon dating wasn't useful over time periods as short as 150 years -- the gold in the movie was supposed to have been from the American Civil War -- but a) I might have misremembered that, and b) it's a science fiction movie so maybe they'd made some SFnal advances in that technology.
So they blew the science inexcusably at a seventh-grade level (if not lower), blew the logic in a way they could've rationalized by adding extra plot complexity, and maybe blew the technology as well ...
Three strikes, in one line -- one set-up-the-background-so-we-can-start-the-plot line -- of dialogue. Kinda painful.
(no subject)
Sorry, it's the archaeology training... :)