 |
| 153 Encyclopædia Britannica articles, from the full 32 volume encyclopedia |
| > | carbon
a nonmetallic chemical element in Group IVa of the periodic table. A brief treatment of carbon follows. For full treatment, see carbon group element: Carbon. |
| > | carbon group element
any of the five chemical elements that make up Group Via of the periodic table—namely, carbon (C), silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), tin (Sn), and lead (Pb). (See .) |
| > | oxygen group element
any of the five chemical elements comprising Group VIa of the periodic classification—namely, oxygen, sulfur, selenium, tellurium, and polonium. (See .) A relationship among the first three members of the group was recognized as early as 1829; tellurium was assigned its place by 1865, and the discovery of polonium in 1898 completed the group. By the early 1970s, the ...
|
| > | nitrogen group element
any of the chemical elements that constitute Group Va of the periodic table (see ). The group consists of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), and bismuth (Bi). The elements share certain general similarities in chemical behaviour, though they are clearly differentiated from one another chemically, and these similarities reflect common features of ...
|
| > | native element
any of a number of chemical elements that may occur in nature uncombined with other elements. The elements that occur as atmospheric gasses are excluded. |
More results > |
| 17 Student Encyclopedia Britannica articles, specially written for elementary and high school students |
| Classification of carbon compounds.
from the organic chemistry article
The chemist has organized the study of compounds of carbon in much the same way he has organized the study of the elements; that is, by grouping them into families. He finds that all organic compounds can be grouped into a small number of families. Moreover, these families can be considered to be derivatives of the hydrocarbon methane (CH4).
|
| organic chemistry
Carbon unites with many elements to form a great variety of compounds that are found in such substances as coal, petroleum, fabrics, plastics, and rubber. Other carbon compounds include plant and animal tissues, sugars, proteins, starches, and cellulose. About 1 million carbon compounds are known. The substances that contain carbon are called organic compounds, and the ...
|
| Curl, Robert
(born 1933), U.S. chemist. In 1996 the Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded to Robert Curl and two other chemists for their discovery of the buckyball, a new form of the element carbon. The discovery opened up a new branch of chemistry and revolutionized nanoscience, a field of chemical physics in which substances are manipulated at the atomic level.
|
| Molecules and Chemical Formulas
from the chemistry article
Elements vary from those that are highly active to those that are almost completely inert. The tendency of an atom to combine is a chemical property of the atom, and it is controlled by electrical forces at the atomic level. Those forces forge the links, called chemical bonds, that hold two or more atoms together. The groups of atoms formed by chemical bonding are known ...
|
| Dalton's Theory of Atoms
from the chemistry article
Lavoisier's results gave chemists their first sound understanding concerning the nature of chemical reactions. The next milestone was the atomic theory, advanced in 1805 by an English schoolteacher, John Dalton. This theory states that matter is made up of small particles called atoms, that each chemical element has its own kind of atoms (in contrast to earlier ideas that ...
|
More articles > |
Encyclopædia Britannica Article
