Why measure the carbon-14 works? Are the carbons atoms create some manner in the life of the organism now dead and fossilized? How do we know that the atoms weren’t there before?
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Carbon 14 is almost like carbon 12 (which is normal carbon carbon), except it is radioactive.
While an organism is living, and taking in air, there is a certain amount of carbon in that air (usually in the form of carbon dioxide). A specific tiny ratio of that carbon will be carbon 14.
When an organism stops taking in carbon from the environment, the amount of radioactive carbon is locked. There will be no more added.
Carbon 14 decays into carbon 12 over time.
So when scientists measure the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12, the older the sample is, the less carbon 14 will be in it.
At some point there is so little carbon 14 we can’t even measure it, and we have to use a different element for dating. This is a very long time, several tens of thousands of years.
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