From the name carbon, Carbon from his name is derived from a Latin world "carbo" which means coal. Carbon is a chemical element with the symbol "C" so as to represents the short form of the name in the periodic table.
ORIGIN OF CARBON.
The English name Carbon actually comes from the Latin carbo which means for coal and charcoal like I have said earlier. In the language of German, Dutch, and the Danish, the names of carbon can be called or are referred to as the kohlenstoff, koolstof and the kulstof respectively.
Actually me pronouncing this name, I experience difficulty in the pronunciation if you are finding it difficult to pronounce it.
But all come together to mean the coal substance.
This will made me to remember the first time in my life I saw a coal. I was like, is this the coal they have been talking about for a long time.
Diamond was first discovered in Chains in the year 2500 BCE. In the year 1772, the great and popular scientist Antoine Lavoisier finally made us to realise and show us that diamonds are a form of carbon by him burning the samples of charcoal and diamond, he later find out that none of the two produced any water and that both also released the same exact amount of carbon dioxide.
Carbon occurs naturally as anthracite.
For us curious to know what anthracite really means.
Anthracite is another type of coal. Carbon also is not limited to existing naturally as anthracite as it can occurs as a diamond and graphite.
If we are to traced back the history of carbon to the ancient days, it is available historically as a soot or rather charcoal.
But as discovering begins to improve and more research begin to undergo on it, it was discovered that these various materials were recognized as the forms of the same element.
History told us that Naturalist Giuseppe Averani and the medic Cipriano Targioni of Florence were actually the first set of people on earth to discover that diamond can actually be destroyed by heating as many believe due to the hardness and greatest difficulty if identification, it can not be destroyed but with the help of those people mentioned above, it was discovered that it can actually be destroyed by heating.
PROPERTIES OF CARBON.
The carbon element is blessed with the atomic number 12 and is in the group 4 in the periodic table.
If we are to look at it on the weight basis, carbon is 19th in the order of elemental abundance in the earth crust. Discovering and research made us know that only five element are atomically more abundant in the cosmos than carbon which are the hydrogen, helium, neon, nitrogen and of course the oxygen.
When helium is burnt, the cosmic product of the burning process involved is Carbon. Which made it to be concluded scientifically that the burning of helium lead to the production of carbon as the end product.
Carbon has an atomic weight of 12. When we talked about the crust if earth, carbon is not that abundant or should I say dominant rather.
There is a natural sequence of chemical reactions called the carbon cycle.
Briefly, carbon cycle is the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide to carbohydrates by photosynthesis in plants, down to the consumption of these carbohydrates and the oxidation of them through the process or stage called metabolism.
Carbon exist in many forms as we all know but the well defined form are just two which are the diamond and graphite.
Diamond and graphite are crystalline in structure but they also differs in their physical properties e.g diamond is hard while graphite is soft.
Like I said earlier, the pure diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance know but also come with a property also attached to that. It is a poor conductor of electricity.
Graphite is in form of a soft slippery solid which in its own case is a good conductor of heat and electricity.
USES OF CARBON.
Carbon has a lot and numerous uses attached to itself. For example, the proteins, the fats, the sugars all contain many carbon atom.
Graphite for an example is used to make pencil. Graphite is used as a lubricant and a conductor of electricity also. No more element is essential to life than carbon.
Carbon is also used in decoration purposes of the diamond mentioned above
Carbon is used as a bleaching agent also. Is used in our various and common fire extinguisher.
It is also used for welding and cutting of metals.
CONCLUSION.
The world of carbon is very wide and unique. Carbon is another element that should be regarded as the special or blessed element after the likes of oxygen.
Discovering are still ongoing on the knowing of carbon element more and we are to expect more coming from the world of carbon.
REFERENCES.
(1). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon
(2). https://www.britannica.com/science/carbon-chemical-element
(3). https://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/c.htm
(4). https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Carbon+(element)
(5). https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/6/carbon
(6). https://www.livescience.com/amp/28698-facts-about-carbon.html
(7).
