A technique is described in which particle accelerators are used to determine the pro-portion of ¹⁴C atoms present in a small sample rather than by simply measuring the number of decay events. This procedure would permit the radiocarbon dating of much smaller samples than is possible with standard methods, and would greatly extend the age of material that can be dated. Possible application of this method to longer-lived isotopes could expand the timescale to millions of years. -- AATA