Google Doodle Buckyball Celebrates History of Fullerene

Google Doodle Buckyball 25 year history celebrated

On Friday night a new Google Doodle was shown on their home page a BuckyBall,the doodle left many surfers wondering what the picture was. Well in fact a Buckyball is a molecule composed of 100% carbon and is shaped like a sphere and its hollow (take a look at the doodle).

The buckyball comes under the molecule category, fullerene,their structure is not to far away from that of graphite. In 1985 the first fullerene was discovered. It’s name was buckminsterfullerene, in honour of Richard Buckminster Fuller,whose geodesic domes it resembles.

Buckminster was an American architect, author, also a futurist and designer amongst other things. He invented a number of futuristic terms like ” Spaceship Earth” He created many designs, mostly based on his architectural knowledge, one of the best known was the geodesic dome.

Harold Kroto, James Heath, Sean O’Brien, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley first discovered Fullerenes in 1985 while carrying out molecular beam experiments. After this monumental discovery they were located in places were carbon is found, Smalley, Kroto and Curl were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work with fullerenes

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Posted by Xiang on Sep 4 2010. Filed under Featured News, Hi-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.