Editing Carbon (section)

==History and etymology==
[[File:Antoine lavoisier.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Antoine Lavoisier]] in his youth]]
The English name ''carbon'' comes from the Latin ''carbo'' for coal and charcoal,<ref>Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press</ref> whence also comes the French ''charbon'', meaning charcoal. In German, Dutch and Danish, the names for carbon are ''Kohlenstoff'', ''koolstof'', and ''kulstof'' respectively, all literally meaning coal-substance.

Carbon was discovered in prehistory and was known in the forms of soot and charcoal to the earliest human civilizations. Diamonds were known probably as early as 2500&nbsp;BCE in China, while carbon in the form of charcoal was made by the same chemistry as it is today, by heating wood in a pyramid covered with clay to exclude air.<ref name="BBCNews-2005">{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4555235.stm |title=Chinese made first use of diamond |work=BBC News |date=17 May 2005 |access-date=2007-03-21 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070320064349/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4555235.stm |archive-date=20 March 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/element.php?sym=C |title=Carbonium/Carbon at Elementymology & Elements Multidict |author=van der Krogt, Peter |access-date=2010-01-06 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100123003310/http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/element.php?sym=C |archive-date=2010-01-23}}</ref>

[[File:Carl Wilhelm Scheele from Familj-Journalen1874.png|thumb|upright|[[Carl Wilhelm Scheele]]]] In 1722, [[René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur]] demonstrated that iron was transformed into steel through the absorption of some substance, now known to be carbon.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ferchault de Réaumur |first=R.-A. |date=1722 |title=L'art de convertir le fer forgé en acier, et l'art d'adoucir le fer fondu, ou de faire des ouvrages de fer fondu aussi finis que le fer forgé (English translation from 1956) |location=Paris, Chicago}}</ref> In 1772, [[Antoine Lavoisier]] showed that diamonds are a form of carbon; when he burned samples of charcoal and diamond and found that neither produced any water and that both released the same amount of carbon dioxide per gram. In 1779,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.canadaconnects.ca/chemistry/1009 |title=Carbon |publisher=Canada Connects |access-date=2010-12-07 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101027222156/http://canadaconnects.ca/chemistry/1009/ |archive-date=2010-10-27}}</ref> [[Carl Wilhelm Scheele]] showed that graphite, which had been thought of as a form of lead, was instead identical with charcoal but with a small admixture of iron, and that it gave "aerial acid" (his name for carbon dioxide) when oxidized with nitric acid.<ref name="Senese, Fred-2000">{{cite web |author=Senese, Fred |date=2000-09-09 |url=http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/inorganic/faq/discovery-of-carbon.shtml |title=Who discovered carbon? |publisher=Frostburg State University |access-date=2007-11-24 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071207230348/http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/inorganic/faq/discovery-of-carbon.shtml |archive-date=2007-12-07}}</ref> In 1786, the French scientists [[Claude Louis Berthollet]], [[Gaspard Monge]] and C. A. Vandermonde confirmed that graphite was mostly carbon by oxidizing it in oxygen in much the same way Lavoisier had done with diamond.<ref>{{cite book |author=Giolitti, Federico |date=1914 |title=The Cementation of Iron and Steel |url=https://archive.org/details/cementationiron01rouigoog |publisher=McGraw-Hill Book Company, inc}}</ref> Some iron again was left, which the French scientists thought was necessary to the graphite structure. In their publication they proposed the name ''carbone'' (Latin ''carbonum'') for the element in graphite which was given off as a gas upon burning graphite. Antoine Lavoisier then listed carbon as an element in his 1789 textbook.<ref name="Senese, Fred-2000"/>

A new [[allotrope]] of carbon, [[fullerene]], that was discovered in 1985<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Nature |volume=318 |pages=162–163 |date=1985 |issue=6042 |bibcode=1985Natur.318..162K |doi=10.1038/318162a0 |s2cid=4314237 |title=C{{sub |60}}: Buckminsterfullerene |last1=Kroto|first1=H. W.|last2=Heath|first2=J. R.|last3=O'Brien|first3=S. C.|last4=Curl|first4=R. F.|last5=Smalley|first5=R. E.}}</ref> includes [[nanostructure]]d forms such as [[buckyball]]s and [[nanotubes]].<ref name="Unwin-2007">{{cite web |url=http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/local/projects/unwin/Fullerenes.html |access-date=2007-12-08 |url-status=live |title=Fullerenes(An Overview) |author=Unwin, Peter |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071201165240/http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/local/projects/unwin/Fullerenes.html |archive-date=2007-12-01}}</ref> Their discoverers&nbsp;– [[Robert Curl]], [[Harold Kroto]], and [[Richard Smalley]]&nbsp;– received the [[Nobel Prize]] in Chemistry in 1996.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1996/index.html |access-date=2007-12-21 |url-status=live |title=The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996 "for their discovery of fullerenes" |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011035122/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1996/index.html |archive-date=2007-10-11}}</ref> The resulting renewed interest in new forms led to the discovery of further exotic allotropes, including [[glassy carbon]], and the realization that "[[amorphous carbon]]" is not strictly [[amorphous]].<ref name="Harris-2004">{{cite journal |url=http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~powles/PDFs/Harris_2004.pdf |url-status=dead |access-date=2011-07-06 |title=Fullerene-related structure of commercial glassy carbons |author=Harris, PJF |date=2004 |journal=Philosophical Magazine |volume=84 |pages=3159–3167 |doi=10.1080/14786430410001720363 |issue=29 |bibcode=2004PMag...84.3159H |citeseerx=10.1.1.359.5715 |s2cid=220342075 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319054641/http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~powles/PDFs/Harris_2004.pdf |archive-date=2012-03-19}}</ref>