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Bucky Ball:

"It is the roundest and most symmetrical large molecule known to man. Buckministerfullerine continues to astonish with one amazing property after another. Named after American architect R. Buckminister Fuller who designed a geodesic dome with the same fundamental symmetry, C60 is the third major form of pure carbon; graphite and diamond are the other two." Bucky Balls - Andy Gion.

AKA: C60 molecules & buckminsterfullerene. Molecules made up of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a series of interlocking hexagons and pentagons, forming a structure that looks similar to a soccer ball [Steffen Weber, PhD.]. C60 is actually a "truncated icosahedron", consisting of 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. It was discovered in 1985 by Professor Sir Harry Kroto, and two Rice University professors, chemists Dr. Richard E. Smalley and Dr. Robert F. Curl Jr., [for which they were jointly awarded the 1996 Nobel Lauriate for chemistry] and is the only molecule composed of a single element to form a hollow spheroid [which gives the potential for filling it, and using it for novel drug-delivery systems. See Structure of a New Family of Buckyballs Created].

"The buckyball, being the roundest of round molecules, is also quite resistant to high speed collisions. In fact, the buckyball can withstand slamming into a stainless steel plate at 15,000 mph, merely bouncing back, unharmed. When compressed to 70 percent of its original size, the buckyball becomes more than twice as hard as its cousin, diamond." The Buckyball - Rodrigo de Almeida Siqueira.

Copyright Oliver Kreylos, Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing (CIPIC), University of California, Davis.