Buckyball

I love science and I love enthusiasm for science. The blog Cocktail Party Physics is supposed to be a collaboration among women scientists and science writers, but it is mostly the postings of Jennifer Ouellette. Here is a more than enthusiastic bit from a post on an old flame of hers, buckyballs:

I have a soft spot for buckyballs, since I was a budding young science writer when Science named buckyballs their "Molecule of the Year," and it was among the earliest materials science stories I covered. I even sported a snazzy buckyballs T-shirt at the APS March meeting where Smalley and Curl gave invited talks (sadly, I accidentally left it in the hotel room when I returned home). The most perfectly round molecule yet discovered! Able to withstand collisions with metals traveling at more than 20,000 MPH! It's Super-Carbon-Molecule!

Okay, so I was relatively new to physics, and like all new converts, that made my enthusiasm somewhat annoying to those who'd been following the story for years (Smalley, Curl, and Kroto started working on C-60 in the early 1980s). More jaded, established science writers tended to roll their eyes in exasperation when I expounded enthusiastically like a rambunctious puppy with a shiny new bone. I was all, like, "OMG! There's this AMAZING NEW MOLECULE! HAVE YOU HEARD? THEY'RE CALLED BUCKYBALLS!"

"We know, Jennifer," they would sigh with the pained looks one reserves for when the new puppy inevitably soils the pricey imported Persian rug. And like that errant puppy, I was only temporarily mollified. I mean, photonic crystals, fractal patterns, levitating frogs, and singing Tesla coils are old news too. That doesn't make them ANY LESS AWESOME! Somewhere out there, another freshly minted science enthusiast is burbling over with excitement over something we've known about for years. It's all about the thrill of discovery -- and if it's new to you, it's a discovery.

I'm older and wiser now, but -- I hope -- not yet jaded. I still have an irrational affection for buckyballs, even though their fame in the materials science world has since been overshadowed by the more practical-minded carbon nanotubes, and that audacious upstart, graphene (honored with this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, a rather controversial decision that is still raising a few hackles among physicists).

There's more than this on the post and there is a lot more real science discussion in other posts on this blog. But I liked the zest and enthusiasm in this post:

Not only do we have carbon nanotubes, but we've made "buckybabies" (asteroid-shaped smaller versions of buckyballs) and "dopeyballs" (wherein one knocks out one or more of the carbon atoms and replaces with a metal atom). The hollow structure of buckyballs means it's easy to fill them other kinds of atoms -- think "molecular cage" or a diamond with a hole in the middle -- and potentially use buckyballs as a deliveray mechanism for, say, therapeutic agents.

...

In case you missed the headlines this past summer, a group of astronomers collecting data with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope announced they had found the first known buckyballs in space -- and the largest molecules yet discovered in places like, say, planetary nebula, the remains of stars that have sloughed off their outer layers of gas and dust as they got older and left that childhood baggage behind them, becoming a white dwarf star in the process. Somewhere in the midst of those clouds, that white dwarf star emits radiation that makes the clouds light up with pretty colors and heats up all leftover gas and dust.

Lots of fun stuff for the buckyball enthusiast in this post, including this video of Harry Kroto:


Hey... love the Spam on the shelf behind Kroto's head! That's a food I was forced fed -- and hated -- as a child.

Not in Ouellette's post, but related...

Here's a video with Richard Smalley talking about the excitement engendered by the buckyball discovery:



Here's a video from Honeywell talking about buckyballs:



One nice thing about the Internet and videos is that they may scientists "real". When I was a kid, the biographies I read put scientists on a pedestal, so I never conceived of a career in science. These are "just people" and these careers are accessible. Sadly, school never taught me what is possible and I suspect it still doesn't. At least the Internet can show a kid that this stuff isn't some fabled Mount Olympus where only gods tread the ground.