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How familiar are you with the periodic table? Our series, The Elements, delves into the essential components of the observable universe—and their significance in your life—one element at a time. Carbon can be dazzling and solid, or it can be delicate and crumbly. It can even resemble a soccer ball. As the foundation of all living organisms, carbon also has the potential to drastically alter life on Earth. How can something as simple as coal and as exquisite as a diamond be made of the same element? Here are eight fascinating facts about carbon you might not know.
1. IT'S THE "UNIVERSAL BINDER OF LIFE."
Carbon is present in every living organism and many non-living ones too. "While water acts as the universal solvent," Natalie Angier explains in her renowned science book, The Canon, "carbon serves as the ultimate adhesive of life." This versatile element not only connects atoms to form humans, animals, plants, and minerals but also allows us to create plastics, paints, and a myriad of other chemicals through manipulation.
2. IT'S AMONG THE MOST COMMON ELEMENTS IN THE COSMOS.
Positioned at the top of the periodic table, nestled between boron and nitrogen, carbon holds the atomic number 6, symbolized by the letter C. With six protons, six neutrons, and six electrons, it ranks as the fourth most prevalent element in the universe, trailing only hydrogen, helium, and oxygen, and 15th in the Earth's crust. While hydrogen and helium were forged during the chaos of the Big Bang, carbon is believed to originate from the accumulation of alpha particles in supernova explosions, a phenomenon known as supernova nucleosynthesis.
3. ITS NAME ORIGINATES FROM COAL.
Although humans have recognized carbon in the form of coal and soot for millennia, it was Antoine Lavoisier who, in 1772, demonstrated its distinct chemical nature. Lavoisier employed a solar furnace, a device with lenses approximately four feet in diameter, to focus sunlight and burn a diamond inside a glass jar. By examining the residue, he proved that diamonds consist entirely of carbon. Lavoisier officially classified it as an element in his 1789 textbook Traité Élémentaire de Chimie. The term carbon is derived from the French word charbon, meaning coal.
4. IT HAS A KNACK FOR FORMING BONDS.
Carbon has the ability to form four bonds, connecting with numerous other elements to create hundreds of thousands of compounds, many of which are integral to our daily lives. (Think plastics, medications, and fuel!) What’s more, these bonds are both durable and adaptable.
5. YOUR BODY IS NEARLY 20 PERCENT CARBON.
May Nyman, a professor of inorganic chemistry at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, explains to Mytour that carbon boasts an astonishingly wide range of applications. "It is the foundation of all life, and the variety of substances it creates—such as fats and sugars—is immense," she notes. Through a process known as catenation, carbon forms chains and rings, serving as the structural backbone of every living organism, alongside nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and other elements. This means animals, plants, every living cell, and humans are all products of catenation. By weight, carbon makes up 18.5 percent of our bodies.
Yet, carbon isn’t limited to organic matter, Nyman adds. It combines with oxygen and other elements to form significant portions of the non-living world, including rocks and minerals.
6. TWO NEW FORMS OF CARBON WERE DISCOVERED ONLY RECENTLY.
Carbon exists in four primary forms: graphite, diamonds, fullerenes, and graphene. "The properties of carbon are determined by its structure," explains Nyman. Graphite, often referred to as "the writing stone," consists of loosely bonded carbon sheets arranged in a hexagonal pattern. When you write with a pencil, you’re essentially transferring layers of graphite onto paper. Diamonds, on the other hand, feature a three-dimensional network of carbon atoms. These incredibly strong bonds require immense energy to break, making diamonds the hardest known natural material on Earth.
Fullerenes were first identified in 1985 when scientists vaporized graphite with a laser, leading to the formation of spherical carbon molecules containing 60 or 70 atoms. These molecules were named after Buckminster Fuller, the innovative creator of geodesic domes, due to their resemblance to soccer balls. The discovery earned Robert Curl, Harold Kroto, and Richard Smalley the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Graphene, the newest addition to the carbon family, was accidentally discovered in 2004 by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov during an informal experiment. Using simple scotch tape—yes, really—they peeled single-atom-thick layers of carbon from a graphite block. This groundbreaking material is both incredibly thin and remarkably strong, earning the duo the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.
7. THE TERM "ICE" FOR DIAMONDS ISN'T ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE.
Diamonds are referred to as "ice" because their exceptional heat conductivity makes them feel cool to the touch, not because of their visual resemblance to ice. This property makes them highly effective as heat sinks in microchips, with synthetic diamonds being the most commonly used. The three-dimensional lattice structure of diamonds plays a key role here, converting heat into lattice vibrations, which accounts for their extraordinary thermal conductivity.
8. IT ALLOWS US TO DATE ARTIFACTS—AND EXPOSE COUNTERFEITS.
Willard F. Libby, an American scientist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960 for inventing a technique to determine the age of ancient objects by measuring the levels of a radioactive carbon isotope within them. Radiocarbon dating, or C14 dating, tracks the decay of C14, a radioactive carbon variant found in living organisms. This method can date objects up to 50,000 years old. It was used to ascertain the age of Ötzi the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old mummy discovered in the Alps, and revealed that Lancelot's Round Table in Winchester Cathedral was crafted centuries after the legendary Arthurian Age.
9. EXCESS CARBON IS TRANSFORMING OUR PLANET.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) plays a crucial role in Earth's atmosphere, acting as a thermal blanket that keeps the planet habitable. However, the combustion of fossil fuels—composed primarily of carbon—releases excessive CO2, driving global warming. Various strategies to capture and store carbon dioxide have been proposed, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, which involves growing vast forests, harvesting and burning them for energy, and sequestering the resulting CO2 underground. Another debated method is increasing ocean alkalinity to enhance their CO2 absorption capacity. While forests naturally act as carbon sinks by absorbing CO2 during photosynthesis, human activities in these areas offset and often exceed the benefits of this natural process. In essence, we have yet to find a viable solution to the excess CO2 we’ve introduced into the atmosphere.
