Since hafnium-182 is an extinct radionuclide, hafnium—tungsten chronometry is performed by examining the abundance of tungsten-182 relative to other stable isotopes of tungsten, of which there are effectively five in total, including the extremely long-lived isotope tungsten-180, which has a half-life much longer than the current age of the universe.
And now, we need our drum roll.
Some nuclides sample, u-235 series.
And usually, these aren't measured directly, and you really care about the relative amounts.
But we know that the amount as a function of time-- so if we say N is the amount of a radioactive sample we have at some time-- we know that's equal to the initial amount we have.
So this number is our numerator right over here.
Description: Using such techniques, scientists can very accurately date ancient volcanic events and can extrapolate from these dates to learn about the ages of other rock strata.