Question

What is meant by Carbon dating? Explain.

Answer 1

Hint: A particular chemical element which has the same number of protons in the nucleus but different number of neutrons is known to be Isotopes. Carbon isotopes come in three different forms: carbon-12, carbon-13, carbon-14.
The most abundant carbon which remains stable in Earth's atmosphere is carbon-12 (12C). The rarest and heaviest radioactive isotope which contains large nuclei and remains unstable is carbon-14 (radiocarbon).

Complete answer:
Archaeologists as well as Scientists used a technique to estimate the age of fossils and archaeological artifacts from ancient sites.
Paleontology focuses on mapping out how life evolved across geologic time. There are several different methods which are used for estimating the ages of fossils, such as: stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, carbon dating.
Radiocarbon dating is a method that provides reliable dates to determine the age of human artifacts as well as to date plants, trees and animal remains. Its age could be evaluated by measuring the amount of carbon-14 present in the sample and comparing this with an internationally used reference standard.
Carbon dating uses the decay of radiocarbon (carbon-14) to estimate the carbon-based materials that originated from living organisms.
Radiocarbon dating has become an irreplaceable tool for paleontologists, archaeologists and scientists to learn the ages of biological specimens from the distant past. The three principal methods of radiocarbon dating are gas proportional counting, liquid scintillation counting and accelerator mass spectrometry.

Note: In 1946, Professor Willard Libby, the chemist at the University of Chicago, proposed the innovative method of radiocarbon dating. He was honored with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960 for his discovery of the radiocarbon dating method.