Final answer:
The first radiometric absolute dating technique, known as radiocarbon dating, was developed by Willard Libby in 1949. This method revolutionized the dating of organic materials by using the decay rate of carbon-14 and won Libby a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Step-by-step explanation:
The first radiometric absolute dating technique was developed by Willard Libby and his team at the University of Chicago in 1949. This technique is known as radiocarbon dating, an absolute dating method based on the decay rate of the radioactive isotope carbon-14. Libby's method was revolutionary as it allowed for the precise dating of organic materials and earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. Before this development, the existence of carbon-14 as an isotope was discovered by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben in 1940, which laid the groundwork for radiometric dating techniques.
Radiocarbon dating fundamentally changed the field of archaeology, enabling scientists to obtain more accurate dates for organic artifacts and events in Earth's history, such as the age of a piece of wood from an ancient Egyptian barge. It relies on assumptions such as the initial absence of daughter atoms and that the material remains a closed system. However, scientists have methods for addressing these assumptions when they might be incorrect. Libby's initial proposals, like half-life calculations, have since been refined with the Cambridge half-life now being used, though some laboratories remain consistent with Libby's original half-life to maintain uniformity in their published data.
Overall, radiometric dating is a critical tool used by geologists that relies on the properties of radioisotopes and their half-lives to date the origin of materials such as fossils, rocks, and archaeological artifacts.