I was just reading through Reactions: The private life of atoms by Peter Atkins and I noticed that in Chapter 3, the chapter on the combustion reaction, the author writes:
As we watch we see $\ce {CH_4}$ being whittled down to naked $\ce {C}$ as its $\ce{H}$ atoms are stripped away by radical attack.
"Naked $\ce {C}$" here seems to refer to a carbon atom, with four unpaired electrons. This seems rather surprising to me as I was thinking that such a reactive and unstable species could not possibly form. Thus, I would like to ask if a "naked $\ce {C}$" can possibly exist, though it may have a really short lifetime. Additionally, I would like to ask if this "naked $\ce {C}$" is considered a tetraradical or a biradical because in the ground state of carbon, there are only two unpaired electrons.