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{{Element | name=Carbon | symbol=C | anumber=6 | amass=12 amu | noestate=6 solid | class=Non-metal | cstructure=Hexagonal | color=black Black | date=Carbon has been known since ancient times. | discname=Unknown | origname=From the Latin ''carbo''. | uses=Steel, filters. | obtained=[[Incomplete combustion]]. }}

It has been suggested that '''Carbon''' is the C-14 decay rate varies proportionately with sixth element in the age [[periodic table of the universeelements]]. Its bonding structure, and if that age which isextremely conducive to the formation of polymers, say 5along with its relative abundance and stability,000 years rather than 10 billion years, then make it integral to the C-14 decay rate could have been many orders formation of magnitude larger life on Earth. ==Carbon and Living Matter== The predominance of carbon in living matter is no doubt a thousand years agoresult of its tremendous chemical versatility compared with other elements. Carbon has the unique ability to form a virtually infinite number of compounds as a result of its capacity to make as many as four highly stable [[covalent bond]]s combined with its ability to form covalently lined carbon-carbon chains of unlimited extent. Thus, of the over 13 million chemical compounds that are presently known, nearly 90% are organic substances. <ref>http:Biochemistry 2ed Voet & Voet<//wwwref> Only five elements, [[Boron]], Carbon, [[Nitrogen]], [[Silicon]], and [[Phosphorus]], have the capacity to make three or more covalent bonds each and thus to form chains of covalently linked atoms that can also have pendant side chains.conservapedia The other elements are either metals, which tend to form [[ion]]s rather than covalent bonds; noble gases, which are essentially chemically inert; or atoms such as [[Hydrogen]] or [[Oxygen]] that can each make only one or two covalent bonds.com/index  Although B, N, Si, and P can each participate in at least three covalent bonds, they are unsuitable as a basis of complex chemistry.php?title Boron, having fewer valence electrons (three) than valence orbitals (four), is electron [[deficient]]. This severely limits the number of stable compounds that boron can form. Nitrogen has the opposite problem; its five valence electrons make it electron rich. The repulsions between the lone pairs of electrons on covalently bonded N atoms serve to greatly reduce the bond energy of a nitrogen-nitrogen bond relative to the unusually stable triple bond of the N2 molecule. Even short chains of covalently bonded N atoms therefore tend to decompose, usually violently, to N2. Silicon and carbon, being in the same column of the periodic table, might be expected to have similar chemical characteristics. Silicon's large atomic radius, however, prevents two Si atoms from approaching each other closely enough to gain much orbital overlap. Consequently, silicon-silicon bonds are weak and the corresponding multiple bonds are rarely stable. Si O bonds, in contrast are so stable that chains of alternating Si and O atoms are essentially inert. Phosphorus, being below N in the periodic table, forms even less stable chains of covalently bonded atoms. =Talk:Carbon_dating&diff=144701&oldid[[Allotrope]]s of Carbon=144638</ref>= Carbon, with its ability to form different types of bonds, forms several allotropes - *[[Graphite]]*[[Diamond]]*amorphous carbon (soot, coal)*[[Buckminsterfullerene]]