Why Carbon Rules Chemistry

Carbon's dominance comes down to a few key properties:

• Four bonding electrons connect it to up to four other atoms at once
• Catenation — it bonds strongly with itself, forming chains and rings of nearly unlimited length
• Bond strength — single, double, and triple bonds give carbon shapes nothing else can match
• Allotropy — the same atoms form diamond, graphite, graphene, fullerenes, and more
• The carbon cycle shapes Earth's climate, and disrupting it drives global warming.