Abdallah Dirie

Bio Lab 1

1/20/20

What is Carbon?

Carbon is the building block of life and it belongs to group 14 of the periodic table  and it makes up 0.025 percent of earths crust. It is also a pattern maker and when it comes together it forms strong chains called polymers it can also connect with 4 different atoms because of its electron arrangement. Also, Carbon gets it name from the Latin word carbo which means coal. In 1985 Rick Smalley and Robert Curl of Rice University in Texas discovered a new form of carbon and they ended up making a mysterious molecule shaped like a soccer ball which contained 60 atoms. Finally the researchers won a Nobel prize in chemistry in 1996.

Description of Carbon

Carbon compounds form common minerals like magnetite,dolomite, and marble it is also distributed as coal. In 1961 the  carbon 12 was replaced by oxygen as the comparable  to which of which the atomic weights are measured.Carbon-14 which is radioactive and the isotope used is radioactive dating and radio labeling. .All in all, it is the blazing of helium in which 3 helium nuclei,atomic number 4, fuse to produce a carbon nucleus  which is atomic number 12.

How does Carbon help us?

Carbon is used everyday in our daily lives for example plants use carbon dioxide to create carbohydrates by photosynthesis. And animals get the carbon by eating plants or other animals.Other things that contain carbon compounds are sugars,starch and proteins and it is also used in cars and most importantly we exhale carbon dioxide everyday so carbon is pretty important and without it i do not know what would replace it because it is in our daily lives so much.

References:https://www.britannica.com/science/carbon-chemical-element#ref1118

https://www.livescience.com/28698-facts-about-carbon.html

https://sciencing.com/items-made-carbon-8500911.html