What is Organic Chemistry......?

 Organic Chemistry is the chemistry of the carbon compounds. At the earlier days the chemical compounds were divided into two classes, Inorganic and Organic depending upon where they had come from. The compounds those were obtained from minerals are known as Inorganic compounds; Organic compounds were those obtained from the materials produced by living organisms. Even after it had become clear that these compounds did not had to come from living organisms but could be made in the laboratory, it was convenient to keep the name organic to describe carbon based compounds. The division between inorganic and organic compounds has been retained to this day.

Today, although many carbon compounds can be isolated from living sources, most of them  synthesized. They may also be synthesized from inorganic substances like carbonates or cyanides, but more often from other organic compounds. The petroleum and the coal , which are the large reservoirs of organic compounds from which simple organic compounds  can be obtained. Since we study the organic chemistry as a special field, what is so special about organic compounds from compounds of all the other hundred-odd elements of the periodic table? because there are so very many compounds of carbon , and their molecules can be so large and complex. The number of carbon contain compounds are many times greater than the number of carbon free compounds. As well as carbon atoms can attach themselves to one another forming all most all size of chains and rings, but which can not be done by other elements or atoms.
These chains and rings can have branches and cross-links. To the carbon atoms of these compounds there are attached other atoms chiefly Hydrogen, but also Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sulfur, Phosphorus and many others.



Different arrangement of atoms leads to form different organic compounds and each compound has its own characteristic set of chemical and physical properties. There are more than 10 million carbon compounds are known today and this no is growing by half a million a year. It is not surprising that the study of their chemistry as a special field. Organic Chemistry is a very important field to technology and industry; It is the chemistry of dyes and drugs, paper and ink, paints and plastics, gasoline and rubber tires; It is the chemistry of the food we eat and the clothing we wear; As well as it is the fundamental to biology and medicine. All the living organisms are made up chiefly of organic compounds; The biology on the molecular level is 'Bio Chemistry' which is also belongs to organic chemistry.


It is possible to say that we are living in the Age of Carbon. Every day the newspapers bring to our attention about carbon compounds; cholesterol and polyunsaturated fats, growth hormones and steroids, insecticides and pheromones, carcinogens and chemotherapeutic agents, DNA and genes etc.... The environmental facts such as  Ozone layer depletion due to the chlorofluorocarbons, Green house effect due to methane, chlorofluorocarbon and most of all carbon dioxides. In addition to that the most hardest thing known is Diamond, which is one of the allotrope of the carbon.