Why is there 3 compounds that exist between carbon and hydrogen but only one with silicon and hydrogen?
Well, there are millions of compounds with carbon (Whole branch of Organic chemistry), but as far as the reason is concerned, well the main reason is that Carbon’s outer most shell is EXACTLY half filled. In carbon there are 6 electrons. Configuration is 1s2, 2s1, 2px1, 2py1, 2pz1 . This is excited state configuration but keep in mind that carbon ONLY reacts in excited state. Now you can see that the outer shell is EXACTLY half filled (Only in carbon of all elements). This makes carbon tremendously more reactive.
