Organic chemistry is currently defined as
a. The study of compounds made only by living cells.
b. The study of carbon compounds.
c. The study of natural (as opposed to synthetic) compounds.
d. The study of hydrocarbons.

Question

Organic chemistry is currently defined as

a. The study of compounds made only by living cells.

b. The study of carbon compounds.

c. The study of natural (as opposed to synthetic) compounds.

d. The study of hydrocarbons.

Accepted Answer

Hello everyone and welcome to today's video. We were asked to identify which of the following describes an organic molecule. So what is an organic molecule? What I want you to recall from Jason's videos that an organic molecule is any molecule that contains carbon. First of all, organic molecules also contain hydrogen and many organic molecules, although not all of them contain certain non metal contains certain nonmetal atoms such as chlorine, oxygen, chlorine and more. Now when we look at examples of organic molecules, we can see glucose being a very popular example that we use for energy with a molecular formula carbon six, hydrogen 12 oxygen six. We can see that every requirement for an organic molecule is made here. But this is not the only example. We also have things like plastics which are synthetic organic molecules and we also have organic molecules that naturally occur in nature such as DNA. Now let's look over our answer choices and identify which one describes an organic molecule. So let's begin by option C molecules that can be easily decomposed. What we have that One of the examples of organic molecules is plastics. Plastic is a synthetic organic molecule made by humans that can take hundreds of years to decompose. Now moving on to option B molecules that are not synthetic and exist only in nature. We can see we go back again to the plastic example. Plastic is a synthetic polymer made by humans. So this option is also incorrect leaving us with answer choice A and D answer choice deed states that organic molecules are molecules that contain only carbon and hydrogen. This is partially true, as we were able to identify in our table down here that organic molecules do contain carbon and hydrogen. However, organic molecules can also contain, so that nonmetal atoms such as oxygen, chlorine referring. So these answer choices not completely correct. So we can cross it out as well. Now moving on to answer choice A. It states that organic molecules are molecules that contain hydrogen and carbon atoms which are conveniently bonded to other molecules. This fits our description of an organic molecule. So we're going to highlight it. Thank you very much for sticking around until the end of this video. I really hope to see you on the next one.

Organic chemistry is currently defined as
a. The study of compounds made only by living cells.
b. The study of carbon compounds.
c. The study of natural (as opposed to synthetic) compounds.
d. The study of hydrocarbons.

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Carbon Compounds

Hydrocarbons

Natural vs. Synthetic Compounds