Carbon comes from the stars. It is made when a star violently explodes into a super nova. Carbon is the fourth-most-common element, behind hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. (Next comes neon!) Yet carbon is found to make up only five parts per thousand of all the elements in our universe. And on Earth, carbon makes up only about 200 parts per million. Even at this low level, carbon plays a central role in many of the countless chemical cycles that take place on our planet. The most important of these is the central role carbon plays in the biochemistry of life. An entire field of chemistry, named organic chemistry, is based on the interactions carbon has with the other elements, as long as hydrogen is included. But organic chemistry doesn't include the vast number of inorganic reactions of carbon. This book explains in depth the origins, history, and roles that the...
University of California Press