Buckminster Fullerene

This is the famous soccerball-shaped molecule that won its discoverers the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1996. It is named after the architect Buckminster Fuller who designed the geodesic dome exhibited at Expo '67 in Montreal, from which Sir Harry Kroto got the idea how 60 Carbon atoms could be arranged in a perfectly symmetrical fashion. Because the name of the molecule is a bit of a mouthful, it is often referred to just as a Bucky Ball. It's also known as 'Footballene' by some researchers. In fact, there is now a whole 'fullerene zoo', with oddly coined names, including: Buckybabies (C32, C44, C50, C58), Rugby Ball (C70), Giant Fullerenes (C240, C540, C960), Russian Egg or Bucky Onions (balls within balls), Fuzzyball (C60H60), Bunnyball (C60(OsO4)(4-t-Butylpyridine)2), Platinum-Burr Ball ({[(C2H5)3P]2Pt}6C60) and Hetero-fullerenes (in which some Cs are replaced by other atoms).
There is also a fullerene paper in which the authors describe a method for severing two adjacent bonds in C60, entitled "There Is a Hole in My Bucky" [J. Am. Chem. Soc., 117 (1995) 7003].

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