Something to think about

In 1996 the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Robert F. Curl, Jr., Harry W. Kroto and Richard E. Smalley for their discovery of buckminsterfullerene. In the 1970s Harry Kroto from the University of Sussex was working on identifying molecules in interstellar gas clouds. Robert Curl and Richard Smalley were separately working at Rice University, Houston on using laser vaporisation techniques to produce clusters of atoms. In 1985 the two groups teamed up and by using a graphite target produced a molecule with a relative molar mass of 720 which corresponded to C₆₀. By 1990 the structure of C₆₀ had been confirmed by X-ray analysis. Buckminsterfullerene (named after the Buckminster Fuller Dome built for Expo '67 in Montreal, Canada) is a closed cage structure (see right) consisting of pentagons and hexagons. Each carbon atom is sp² hybridized and bonded to three other carbon atoms. Other fullerenes , e.g. C₇₀, have also been shown to exist. The discovery of fullerenes led to the whole new branch of science called nanotechnology which is covered in Option A: Materials (A.6 Nanotechnology). More information about the discovery of fullerenes can be found on the molecule of the month page published by Bristol University and also 'The discovery of fullerenes' produced by the American Chemical Society.

It is worth contrasting this discovery and the subsequent award of the Nobel Prize with the work of Gilbert Lewis (1875-1946) in the first half of the last century. Much of the theory of covalent bonding underlying the whole of this topic was first proposed by Lewis and arguably he remains the most deserving chemist never to have won a Nobel Prize even though he was nominated several times. The politics behind the chemistry and how the Nobel Prize was awarded in the first part of the 20th century is covered well in the book  Cathedrals of Science written by P. Coffey.