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Buckyballs

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In 1996, the Nobel Prize was awarded to Robert F. Curl, Harold W. Kroto and Richard E. Smalley for their discovery of fullerenes in 1985. Fullerenes are a new form of elemental carbon. Up until that time, carbon was thought to exist in two main crystalline forms - diamonds and graphite. Basically, it was found that vaporized carbon formed clusters when condensed in an inert (He) atmosphere. The most common cluster contained 60 carbon atoms. The above web site and Naming the Buckministerfullerene, both tell the story of this discovery, but are written more like scientific papers. For a very readable account of their findings, click over to Buckyballs - a new sphere of science. The structure determined for C₆₀ (a set of interlocking pentagons and hexagons) is also that of the geodesic dome as designed by Buckminister Fuller. (Try building your own geodesic dome - Geodesic dome or Building Big.) Hence the new molecule was named in his honour - buckministerfullerene or fullerene or buckyball for short. Another site you might want to look at is Fullerenes . Here fullerenes in general are discussed (there are many more than just C₆₀). There is a separate section on C₆₀. According to this site there has not yet been found a commercial application for fullerenes, but research is continuing (I do not know when the site was last updated). But to further explore the question of what uses can be made of the buckyball, take a look at Scientific American's Silicon Buckyballs and Buckymedicine , two more recent sites. Obviously, there is a great deal of research going on in this area.

To discover more about the structure of a buckyball, click over to Schlumberger Science Centre. A buckyball has the shape of a truncated icosahedron. What is that, you say? Take a look at truncating an icosahedron to see how it is done. There is also a section on building your own buckyball . Give it a try! Buckyball: a C₆₀ molecule has several pictures of buckyballs with short explanations. For another view, take a look at Buckyball and Buckminster ball - C₆₀ cage , both Java applet representations (takes a minute to load).