I saw a boron-based life form in a sci-fi show and it made me curious about how that works. I did some reading on it, and all I see is around the oxidation states and the ability to bond with atoms.
I vaguely grasp these concepts, but don’t get why, if it is possible for boron to build life, why can’t we/haven’t we done it?
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Carbon has two major things that make it more versatile than other atoms. It is most stable when it has 4 bonds and it makes bonds with hydrogen that essentially have no charge. Boron is… weird. It wants to make 3 or 5 bonds but either one makes it unhappy and results in weird charge distributions. Without getting too deep into chemistry. Boron is the hardest atom to make happy stable bonds, it’s both too weak and too strong, and too positive or negative to make long chains based on Boron.
Carbon is best, then Silicon, then Arsenic, then maybe boron or germanium. Are candidates for life to be based on but in abundance carbon is always going to be the first to look for.
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