A chiral carbon is defined as a tetravalent carbon atom containing four different substituents around it. Due to having four different substituents, the molecule becomes optically active, which means it can shift the direction of plane-polarized light to the left or to the right.
One of the reasons why there are millions of organic compounds is that carbon can form long, stable linear chains of carbon. This makes it possible to produce polymeric chains containing thousands to millions of carbon atoms in it. Even with these lengths of the polymer chains, the compounds still have high stability.
One of the important properties of carbon is its tetravalency. Carbon is a strict octet follower, which means it needs a maximum of 8 electrons to form stable compounds. Since a carbon atom has 4 valence electrons, it can form up to 4 bonds with different elements. Part of the reason why there are millions of compounds of carbon is its possibility of forming very stable bonds with another carbon ato
