Organic chemistry is the study of the compounds of carbon. It is the single largest branch of chemistry, and the one with the most direct impact on the daily lives of most people in the world. The number of organic compounds is well over a million, and thousands of new compounds are created or discovered every year. In addition to the practical uses of organic compounds as drugs, fuels, and industrial chemicals, the study of organic compounds provides new information about chemical bonding, reactions, and other processes unavailable from the study of other types of compounds.

Why is carbon at the center of this vast field of study, rather than, say, sodium? The answer is that carbon's electron configuration allows it to form four bonds, and its size and electronegativity mean these bonds will be primarily covalent or polar covalent, rather than ionic. The ability to...