Carbon
chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6; common element of all known life
Carbon (from Latin carbo 'coal') is a chemical element; it has symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 electrons. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes up about 0.025 percent of Earth's crust. Three isotopes occur naturally, 12C and 13C being stable, while 14C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of 5,700 years. Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity.
Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. Carbon's abundance, its unique diversity of organic compounds, and its unusual ability to form polymers at the temperatures commonly encountered on Earth, enables it to serve as the common element of all known life. It is the second most abundant element in the human body by mass (about 18.5%) after oxygen.
The atoms of carbon can bond together in diverse ways, resulting in various allotropes of carbon.
“Carbon” enters the record as chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6; common element of all known life. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Carbon, chemical and element can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q623. The Library of Congress control number is sh85020090. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carbon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.