Fullerene

Fullerenes are one of only four types of naturally occurring forms of carbon (the other three being diamond, graphite and ceraphite). They are molecules composed entirely of carbon, taking the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are sometimes called buckyballs, while cylindrical fullerenes are called buckytubes or nanotubes.

Fullerenes in Humour/Fiction

In New Scientist there used to be a weekly column called Daedelus written by David Jones, which contained humourous descriptions of unlikely technologies. In 1966 the columnist included a description of the C60 and other forms of graphite. This was meant as pure entertainment.

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Also in the New Scientist magazine, a free book was enclosed entitled, "100 Things to Do Before You Die" and one of which was to kick a buckyball.

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Science fiction writer Neal Stephenson uses buckyballs as nanotechnological containers in his 1995 cyberpunk/postcyberpunk novel The Diamond Age. Buckyballs show up in Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson as a result of the fall of the first space elevator onto the surface of mars.

Related Topics:
Neal Stephenson - Cyberpunk - Postcyberpunk - The Diamond Age - Kim Stanley Robinson - Space elevator

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