Last week, the seeds of Mumbai University Accelerator Centre (MUAC) that were sown in the 1970s by some of the city’s brightest, and their visionary professor, came to fruit in an important development in carbon dating at the university’s Vidyanagari (Kalina) Campus. During that session, the Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) facility with special emphasis on carbon dating was formally revealed to the research and user community. This groundbreaking equipment ensures intensive, accurate research ranging from archaeology to medicine. Its uses, specifications and capabilities, and the problems it can solve, were shared at the one-day online workshop that was attended by nearly 300 participants from across India.

Why AMS facility matters

Carbon dating is a well-established technique that tests any sample for research; it helps find out the ratio of carbon isotopes and reveals the sample’s age. These instruments are extremely expensive, running into over Rs 10 crore. In India, there is one such instrument in Delhi and another in Ahmedabad, compared to China that has six, seven or possibly, 10 and USA that has many more because it is an important tool in research. A few years ago, the University of Mumbai (MU) wrote to the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) expressing their intent to have one such machine. MU would pilot the proposal and host it. After some negotiations, funds were raised from the DAE to set it up.