By Luis Brudna on July 2, 2008 at 7:01 pm

The first video is the same structure as C60?! I guess that is different.
—
C60: Buckminsterfullerene
* Kroto, H. W., Heath, J. R., O’Brien, S. C., Curl, R. F & Smalley, R. E.
* Nature 318, 162–163 (14 November 1985)
* doi:10.1038/318162a0

By David Bradley on July 3, 2008 at 11:07 am

When Kroto and colleagues were first trying to figure out what structure a molecule with just 60 carbon atoms might take, legend has it that it took a colleague in mathematics to point out that a truncated icosahedron had spherical symmetry and sixty vertices like a conventional hexagons and pentagons football (soccerball for US readers). Of course, Sir Harry himself likened the structure to one of the geodesic designs of Richard Buckminster Fuller and of course that name became fullerene/buckyball. It really ought to have been called [60]soccerane…just a thought.

The BBC documentary even tried to have the team piecing together hexagons and pentagons in the same way that Watson and Crick pieced together DNA, but I presume that was merely artistic license as once they knew it was soccerball shaped piecing it together would have been trivial.

Still a fantastic discovery that has given us chemistry writers metaphorical fodder for years now.

db

By Aaron Rowe on July 3, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Hurray! Video comes to the Chemical and Engineering News blog.

By Origami de um fulereno on July 7, 2008 at 3:35 pm

[...] Via CENtral [...]

By cyndi lam on November 9, 2008 at 8:03 am

hello how do you make 60 pcs of triangle shape. Can you give me the measurement.