Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de wrote:
>
> Buckys sing, dance, and throw confetti. Buck nekkid buckys
> win the sexiest molecule of the decade award.
A couple of months ago, I forwarded a news story to my friend
F that began "New findings provide evidence that Earth's most severe
mass extinction -- an event 250 million years ago that wiped
out 90 percent of the life on Earth -- was triggered by a
collision with a comet or asteroid. Over 90 percent of all marine
species and 70 percent of land vertebrates perished as a result,
according to the NASA-funded research team..." (Becker, L., Poreda, R. J.,
Hunt, A. G., Bunch, T. E., Rampino, M. (2001). Impact Event at the
Permian-Triassic Boundary: Evidence from Extraterrestrial Noble Gases
in Fullerenes. Science 291: 1530-1533):
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/291/5508/1530
He replied:
> It is curious how, since their discovery, buckyballs have managed to
> insinuate themselves into one fashionable subject after another. What
> next?
>
> Study: Buckyballs Linked to Homosexuality in C. elegans
> Electron Micrograph of HIV Soccer Team
> Geek Fells Prof with Buckyball Barrage
>
> While we're on the subject, why is it that two five-membered carbon
> rings can never share a bond? I suppose it must be a consequence of
> resonance. Remarkably, the question is not discussed in _The Nature
> of the Chemical Bond_. (*)
>
> --- Joe Fineman jcf@world.std.com
>
> ||: We have had artificial _foolishness_ for a long time. :||
Jim F.
(*)
> > Never mind. A C60 buckyball isn't a dodecahedron, it's a truncated
> > icosahedron, with alternating pentagonal and hexagonal faces (like a
> > soccer ball, which I hadn't remembered).
>
> Right. A dodecahedron has 20 vertices, not 60.
>
> > So the five-atom rings only share atoms with six-atom rings, not
> > other five-atom rings -- is that what you meant?
>
> Yes. And that is very generally true -- it is not just a thing about
> buckyballs. For example, there is a compound (naphthalene) consisting
> of two hexagons sharing an edge, and there is one consisting of a
> hexagon stuck to a pentagon (indene). But there is no hydrocarbon
> consisting of two pentagons (it ought to be C_8H_8, if I have counted
> the bonds correctly). Presumably this is because of the impossibility
> of a suitable resonance. But it is odd that Pauling, the high priest
> of resonance, does not discuss it.
>
> --- Joe Fineman jcf@world.std.com
>
> ||: If it moves, fondle it, except porcupines, ball lightning, :||
> ||: and policemen. :||
(There's a Web page on fullerene chemistry at:
http://www.twr.ac.za/jos7.htm )
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