Uniquely Carbon: Graphite and Diamond

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Graphite (black) and Diamond (clear) are both pure Carbon.

The difference is in the structure or how the Carbon electrons are bonded together.

graphite structure

diamond structure

This makes Carbon really unique and interesting.

Chemical Name: Carbon
Chemical Symbol: C
Atomic Number: 6
Atomic Mass: 12

Carbon has 4 electron in it's out most shell (electronic configuration 1s2 2s2 2p2), it needs 4 more electrons to be stable (read my post on element stability).

The ability of Carbon to bond with itself and to create single, double and triple bonds is another of it's unique characteristic.

To explain all this is too much for a post, so I plan to make separate posts (I hope so) on it. The study of Carbon itself and its compounds is called Organic Chemistry.

Instability

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Unstable life, unstable work, unstable relationship…why oh why?

Don’t know why either.

Maybe we could learn something at microscopic viewpoint.

As mentioned before, naturally electrons are unstable, except for inert gases, you’ll learn later why.

But first let me introduce you first to a very important tool – The Periodic Table!

(this is only a part of Periodic Table since I just took a print screen, if you want the complete version get it from www.ptable.com )

The number of electrons an element has depends on the atomic number. It is the number that is usually placed as superscript.

So Hydrogen H has one valence electron, Helium He has 2 and so on.

The first energy level must be filled with 2 electrons to be stable, then the following energy levels must have 8 electrons.

So basically only those inert gases (on the most right side column) are stable and the rest of the elements seek their destined partners.

Love aka Chemical Bonds

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Elements like people are very unstable. They both search though life for their partners. But in the case of elements it can have a max of 4 bonds (maybe Islam got their idea from this!). And once they bonded they stay like that forever unless an outside force caused them to separate. A real life drama.

There are different kinds of bonds: covalent bonds, ionic bonds and metallic bonds.

Covelent Bonds is where elements or atoms share their electrons. Talk about true love…hahaha…

Whereas Ionic Bonds, mostly happens between a metal and a non-metal, where the non-metal gains control of the electron/s and the other giving it up. Hmp, selfish love (non-metal) vs unselfish love (metal)…but this is more common in real life…

Metallic bonds are harder to explain, really techie, but as the name implies it is a bond between metals and usually of the same kind. Homo love...haha...