doesn't matter, they can tell how long the ink was actually on the page.Perhaps, but is the chemistry of the ink the same for the entire note? Is the chemistry of today's ink the same as it was 40 years ago?Then Allred may claim that he switched pens when writing the note in the yearbook. Perhaps one pen was running out of ink.I'm not sure they can determine the age of the ink, but they can determine the composition. If it doesn't match, then it's a forgery.Correct, and even though one part of the writing might match the age, the rest might not, or none do, or all do. Submission to a forensic expert clears it all up.
Why do I get the feeling they don't want it cleared up?
As you can see here, Carbon 14 dating smply isn't accurate enough to make the determination:
Illustrative MathematicsThere may be other dating methods that are more accurate, but I'm not aware of them.
As such, the reported half life of 5730±40 years means that 40 years is the standard deviation for the process and so we expect that roughly 68 percent of the time half of the Carbon 14 in a given sample will decay within the time span of 5730±40 years. If greater likelihood is sought, we could look at the interval 5730±80 years, encompassing two standard deviations, and the likelihood that the half-life of a given sample of Carbon 14 will fall in this range is a little over 95 percent.
No, it is vastly different. I don't think the ink used in old Bic pens is in production anymore. They mostly use gel based inks now. They flow much easier and it's water soluable so it will wash out of your cloths.