The reason for the abundance and unique diversity of carbon compounds lies in some of the unique properties of the carbon atom – its atomic number – and, as the English chemist Nevil Sidgwick explains in his classic textbook Chemical Elements and Their Compounds.
As the English chemist Nevil Sidgwick explains in his classic textbook Chemical Elements and Their Compounds: “Carbon is unique among the elements in the number and variety of compounds it can form, and it has previously isolated and described more than a quarter of a million living compounds.
Sedgwick presented two reasons for the great diversity of carbon compounds compared to silicon:
“Silicon compounds lose the stability of carbon compounds, more precisely stable compounds with long chains of silicon atoms cannot be formed.”
Second, because the affinity of the carbon atom for most elements, especially the carbon atom itself and for hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and halogens, does not vary very much, even the most disparate derivatives do not need to vary significantly in energy content (temmodynamic stability)."
However, another property of carbon is its ability to form what are known as multiple bonds, by sharing two or more electrons with another atom, while silicon does not have this ability, so its chemistry is much less rich and diverse.
More: https://braheen.com/publications/قدر-الطبيعة-قوانين-الحياة-تفصح-عن-وجود-الغاية-في-الكون
—
Source: Published on Facebook's "Braheen Center" page