Carbon Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers
Carbon is a chemical element with symbol C and what atomic
number?
A: 6.
As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is what?
A: Nonmetallic and tetravalent.
Being tetravalent means it has four electrons available to
form what?
A: Covalent chemical bonds.
What are the three naturally occurring isotopes of carbon?
A: 12C, 13C and 14C .
14C is radioactive, with a half-life of about how long?
A: 5,730 years.
The best known allotropes of carbon are what?
A: Graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon.
Under normal conditions all carbon allotropes are what?
A: Solids.
Which form of carbon is the most thermodynamically stable?
A: Graphite.
What are the largest sources of inorganic carbon?
A: Lime stones, dolomites and carbon dioxide.
Significant quantities of inorganic carbon also occur in
organic deposits of what?
A: Coal, peat,
oil and methane clathrates.
Carbon forms, more compounds than what?
A: Any other element.
Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth's
what?
A: Crust.
Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the what?
A: Universe. ( by mass after hydrogen,
helium, and oxygen).
Carbon is present in all known forms of what?
A: Life.
The allotropes of carbon include the hardest naturally
occurring substance which is what?
A: Diamond.
They also include one of the softest known substances which
is what?
A: Graphite.
Carbon is known to form how many different compounds?
A: Almost ten million.
Most forms of carbon are comparatively "what" under normal
conditions?
A: Un-reactive.
At standard temperature and pressure, carbon resists all
but the strongest what?
A: Oxidizers.
Carbon does not react with sulfuric acid, hydrochloric
acid, chlorine or any what?
A: Alkalis.
As of 2009, what form of carbon appears to be the strongest
material ever tested?
A: Graphene.
What form of carbon makes a very good lubricant?
A: Graphite.
Diamond is an excellent electrical
what?
A: Insulator.
Diamond has the highest breakdown electric field of what?
A: Any known material.
Diamond is the best known naturally occurring thermal what?
A: Conductor.
Atomic carbon is very short-lived and, therefore, carbon is
stabilized in various multi-atomic structures with different molecular
configurations called what?
A: Allotropes.
At very high pressures carbon forms the more compact
allotrope called what?
A: Diamond.
Fullerenes have a graphite-like structure, but instead of
purely hexagonal packing, they also contain pentagons (or even heptagons) of
what?
A: Carbon atoms, which bend the sheet into spheres, ellipses or cylinders.
Carbon is abundant in the Sun, stars, comets, and in the
atmospheres of most what?
A: Planets.
It has been estimated that the solid earth as a whole
contains how much carbon?
A: 4360 million gigatonnes.
About what percentage of all industrial diamonds used in
the U.S. are now made synthetically?
A: 30%.
Carbon-14 is formed in upper layers of the
troposphere and
the stratosphere by a reaction that is precipitated by what?
A: Cosmic rays.
To form a carbon atomic nucleus requires a almost
simultaneous triple collision of alpha particles (helium nuclei) within the core
of a what?
A: A giant or supergiant star.
No significant carbon was created during the what?
A: Big Bang.
