Varanasi court order on July 21 on carbon dating in Gyanvapi mosque

Mangalore Today News Network

Lucknow, Jul 15, 2023: A district court of Varanasi has reserved its order on carbon dating as part of the survey in the Gyanvapi mosque. The court will pronounce its judgement on July 21.

In May this year, the court had agreed to hear a plea for a survey by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) of the entire Gyanvapi mosque premises located next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. The court had accepted the petition filed by lawyer Vishnu Shankar Jain, who represents the Hindu side.

 

After considering the plea of Vishnu Jain, the court asked the Gyanvapi mosque committee to file its reply to the submissions made by the Hindu side. The court, after hearing both sides, has now reserved the order on carbon dating.

A few days ago, Hindu petitioners urged the Supreme Court for an urgent hearing of the plea challenging the Allahabad High Court order directing the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct a scientific investigation of the "Shivling" on the premises of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi complex.

While it’s easy to find someone’s age based on the year they were born, it gets increasingly complex to establish the same for an object or plants, dead animals, or fossil remains. Dating plays a key role in understanding the history of objects that have existed for centuries or the evolutionary process that various species have gone through.

As plants, animals, and humans die, they stop the balance of carbon-14 in the system, since there is no more absorption of carbon. Meanwhile, the carbon-14 that has been accumulated begins to decay. Scientists, to establish the age, then analyze the leftover amount of carbon dating.

Apart from carbon, Potassium-40 is also an element that can be analysed for radioactive dating. Potassium-40 has a half-life of 1.3 billion years, similarly, Uranium -235 with a half-life of 704 million years, and Thorium-232 with a half-life of 14 billion years are also used to estimate the age of geological objects like rocks.

Courtesy: India Today