Re: Will carbon atoms burn?

Kyle, thank you for your excellent question! Yes indeed, carbon atoms will burn. More properly, chemists refer to the process as combustion. When undergoing combustion, carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2), if sufficient oxygen is available, or carbon monoxide (CO), if the supply of oxygen is limited, according the the equations below:

          C(s)    +    O2(g) --------->    CO2(g)

        2 C(s)    +    O2(g) --------->  2 CO(g)

Interestingly, the investigation of the combustion of many different substances in air or in oxygen by the French chemist, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) led to the founding of "modern" chemistry. At some point you might want to read Lavoisier's work ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON CHEMISTRY. I would also recommend visiting the website Michael Faraday: The History of a Candle. At this site, you can read a transcript of Lecture VI (Carbon or Charcoal-Coal Gas-Respiration And Its Analogy To a Candle) by Michael Faraday (1791-1867). If you are interested in history, you might like to read about the independent "discovery" of oxygen by Joseph Priestly (he called it "dephlogisticated air") and Carl W. Scheele or what "chemistry" was like before Lavoisier, when it was called alchemy. Two alchemists, Johann Joachim Becher and Georg Stahl, put forth the Phlogiston Theory to explain burning/combustion. It was the disproving of this theory by Lavoisier that gave modern chemistry its start. Hence, Lavoisier is recognized as the "founder of modern chemistry".

One last thing I would mention. When a substance combines with oxygen, the process is called oxidation. The idea of oxidation is not limited to the combination of a substance with oxygen, however, but has a broader meaning. Oxidation is any process in which electrons are given up or released. There is an opposite process called reduction. This refers to any process in which electrons are gained or acquired by a substance. Both oxidation and reduction occur simultaneously; you cannot have one take place without the other.

Reference:  N.D. Tzimopoulos, et al., MODERN CHEMISTRY, pp. 244-5, 597-
            601, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., New York, 1990.