Carbon Carbon Carbon (from "coal") is a chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Three isotopes occur naturally, C and C being stable, while C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of about 5,730 years. Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity. Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. Carbon's abundance, its unique
Standard atomic weight publishes "abridged" values (up to five digits per number only), and for the twelve interval values, "conventional" values (single number values). Symbol "A" is a relative atomic mass, for example from a specific sample. To be specific, the standard atomic weight can be noted as , where (E) is the element symbol. The abridged atomic weight, also published by CIAAW, is derived from the standard atomic weight reducing the numbers to five digits (five significant figures). The name does not say 'rounded'. Interval borders are rounded "downwards" for the first (lowmost) border, and "upwards" for the "upward" (upmost) border. This