system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How truly accurate is carbon dating and how does it work?
gpt
Carbon dating is very accurate.

There are two kinds of carbon that occur in large amounts C-12 and C-14, C-14 decays.  When a plant is alive it takes in carbon dioxide and uses that to make its structures, in this living plant we would find C-14 and C-12 in ratios very similar to those that occur in the air.  When the plant dies it stops res pirating, thus no more C-12 or C-14 are put into the plant.  The C-14 slowly decays (at a known and constant rate) into C-12, so as the dead plant matter goes on in time the C-14 becomes less than in the atmosphere and the C-12 becomes more until there is no more C-14.  By taking a sample of old plant matter (wood for instance) and looking at its ratios of C-14 to C-12 you can get an accurate date for its age.