In 1985 a chemist looking at stardust, paired with one searching for brand new materials, stumbled across what science said could not exist – a third form of carbon. They named the soccer ball-shaped molecules "Buckminsterfullerene" after the architect who invented the geodesic dome. Today "Buckyballs," as the molecules are playfully known, are revolutionizing chemistry and promise countless technological applications. NOVA traces this remarkable tale of serendipity in scientific discovery.
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00:00Tonight on NOVA, a scientific breakthrough goes unnoticed.
00:05Of course, my response was, oh, it's probably just junk.
00:08Not junk, buckyballs, a new form of carbon that could revolutionize science.
00:14Who will capture it? Who will exploit its potential?
00:17Once you know it might be there, and then you go to look for this rather elusive character, you may find it.
00:23The competition is fierce, but the rewards are great in the race to catch a buckyball.
00:30Funding for NOVA is provided by Merck.
00:43Pharmaceutical research, improving health, extending life.
00:48Merck, committed to bringing out the best in medicine.
00:53And by Raytheon.
00:54Through a commitment to technology, Raytheon offers a broad line of general aviation aircraft.
01:02Raytheon. Expect great things.
01:06Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by annual financial support from viewers like you.
01:13Long a mystery of creation, diamonds were once endowed with magical traits.
01:27Some believed they were forged by lightning bolts.
01:31Others, that they were fallen stars.
01:33Today we know this treasured stone is merely a crystal of one of Earth's most common elements.
01:46Carbon.
01:48Diamonds rise on molten lava from deep within the Earth,
01:52where white-hot heat and enormous pressure squeeze carbon atoms into gems.
01:57There were thought to be only two forms of pure carbon on Earth.
02:05In diamond, carbon atoms are tightly packed in a crystalline architecture.
02:10This density causes diamond to sparkle brilliantly and makes it the hardest matter known.
02:19Restructure the atoms and you create an entirely different substance, graphite.
02:25Like diamond, nothing but carbon.
02:28But its atoms are layered in sheets that can slide and be cleaved.
02:33Making graphite the soft, opaque stuff of pencil lead.
02:41For centuries, science held that these were the only two forms of pure carbon.
02:47Then, in an astounding act of modern alchemy,
02:54simple sticks of graphite were unknowingly transformed into a precious new substance.
03:03By chance, what science could not believe has been found.
03:09A new form of pure carbon.
03:11For 10,000 some odd years, we've only had diamond and graphite.
03:18Now, at the end of the 20th century, we've discovered a third form of carbon.
03:22Something that probably no one had ever before seen in the history of mankind.
03:29I was there. I can say that I was there.
03:32Chemistry has, by and large, been the subject of studying carbon.
03:36How could we have missed something like this?
03:37This is a tale of insight, skill, and scientific surprises.
03:49The earthly discovery began with a look into space,
03:54at the death of stars and the birth of planets.
04:00Dying stars are shooting out carbon atoms.
04:03The carbon in our body originated in space.
04:08Indeed, we now know that it was ejected from some star a long, long time ago,
04:12and then was reprocessed and ended up on the Earth's biosphere.
04:16What is absolutely fascinating,
04:18and certainly something that excited me when I first discovered it,
04:21is that every one of us is made of carbon,
04:24and therefore every one of us is made of stardust.
04:26In the early 80s, Harry Croto was studying stardust.
04:30One thing we are not so sure about is what is the form of that dust?
04:34What is the structure?
04:35How does the carbon nucleate to form these little lodges
04:38that go on to grow into planets?
04:41In space, carbon atoms can exist alone or in chains and clusters.
04:48Harry Croto suspected such carbon structures
04:51could answer a problem that long perplexed astronomers.
04:54One key to unlocking a molecule's structure is light.
05:02All molecules absorb light energy as it strikes them.
05:06This absorption produces a specific pattern of dark bands
05:11called an absorption spectrum.
05:14Each molecule's absorption spectrum is unique,
05:17and like a signature, it can reveal the molecule's identity.
05:21Astronomers studying absorption bands from space
05:28were baffled by certain signatures.
05:32No one knew what in the stardust could cause them.
05:35This puzzle intrigued a physicist near Kitt Peak Observatory.
05:41The thing that got me most interested about astronomy
05:44was this amazing mystery of the diffuse interstellar bands.
05:48None of these have yet been explained by anything on Earth.
05:52So when I was a young assistant professor
05:53at the University of Arizona,
05:55and I began talking with the astronomers,
05:57I began to realize that perhaps there's something out there
06:00that we hadn't made on Earth,
06:02and perhaps the discovery of that
06:04would be a really exciting challenge to pursue.
06:08So when I learned of this,
06:10I immediately, in my young wisdom,
06:12thought I knew the answer
06:14and even published a paper on it,
06:15which is, of course, wrong.
06:16In 1982,
06:24Huffman took a sabbatical in the Black Forest of Germany
06:27at the physics lab of Wolfgang Kratzmer in Heidelberg.
06:35They wanted to study the ultraviolet spectrum
06:38of tiny particles of carbon dust.
06:41This is the, so to speak, historic machinery
06:44where Don Huffman and I made the first dust experiments.
06:53It worked like an arc welder,
06:55pushing an electric current through sticks of graphite,
06:59but inside a bell jar, in a vacuum.
07:02It made a cloud of vaporized graphite,
07:07carbon dust.
07:13They collected the dust,
07:14and shining an ultraviolet light through it,
07:17produced a UV absorption spectrum.
07:20And it was not at all what they expected.
07:22At a wavelength of about 220 nanometers,
07:26instead of a smooth curve,
07:28they got a band with a double hump,
07:30a sort of double absorption band.
07:35Kratzmer dubbed this camel spectrum,
07:39and they were there after we called it the camel spectrum.
07:41And that set off a discussion,
07:43a long-time discussion between Kratzmer and I.
07:46I've suggested originally
07:48that maybe we had a new solid form of carbon.
07:51He was believing that it must be something very, very peculiar,
07:55and I was believing it as just junk.
07:57And then I would suggest that,
07:59well, maybe we had long-chain molecules of carbon,
08:02such as were being discussed in those days.
08:04And I was arguing it is just junk.
08:08And then I think Kratzmer maybe came up
08:10with some suggestions of his own.
08:11And so we were arguing that this may be
08:14some kind of combined structure,
08:17which is new.
08:18Of course, my response was,
08:19oh, it's probably just junk.
08:21So junk was our favorite explanation
08:23for quite a few years for the spectrum.
08:26Little did Huffman and Kratzmer know
08:28that this sooty junk contained an invaluable treasure,
08:32one Harry Croteau would look for
08:35in his own stardust research.
08:37We were working on some longish-chain carbon molecules,
08:41and I wanted to do experiments in the laboratory
08:44to see whether we could simulate carbon star atmospheres
08:47and the chemistry in these objects
08:49to see whether we could, in fact,
08:50see these long-chain molecules in the laboratory.
09:03Houston, Texas.
09:04Here was a device that would help Harry Croteau
09:07conduct his stardust experiments.
09:11In 1984, Croteau traveled from England
09:14to Rice University,
09:15where researchers had the best system in the world
09:18for looking at clusters of vaporized atoms.
09:22In this lab, he met the scientists
09:24who would become his partners.
09:26Most materials, like the silicon, for example,
09:29need to go to many thousands of degrees
09:31to be vaporized.
09:32Well, there's an easy way of doing that
09:34with these modern lasers.
09:35Here's a silicon disk.
09:36We bring it on in,
09:37and as we come into the focus here,
09:39we're generating a little plume of silicon atoms
09:42well over 10,000 degrees,
09:45easily hotter than the surface of any star.
09:48But what good is if it's just here in the air
09:50forming silicon oxide, actually,
09:52what we really want to do
09:53is to collect these silicon atoms
09:55as they're knocked off,
09:56aggregate them together in a little cluster
09:58into this big machine down here
10:00that we built to study those clusters on the fly.
10:04Ultimately, it comes on into this large chamber,
10:07and on the inside of this,
10:08it strikes at the back
10:09the target material that we're trying to vaporize
10:12to produce clusters.
10:13The clusters rush back,
10:17get ionized by another laser,
10:20and pushed up by an electric field
10:21to a mass spectrometer.
10:23It counts how many clusters there are
10:25and how many atoms in each.
10:27Overall, it's a very simple apparatus,
10:29although it looks rather forbidding.
10:32Smalley was working on clusters of silicon,
10:35but when Harry saw the lab,
10:36he thought of carbon and stardust.
10:39Hotter than the surface of any star.
10:42When I went over to Rick's lab
10:44and saw the machine in the flesh,
10:45it was just fascinating.
10:47And almost immediately,
10:48I realized that if we substituted graphite
10:51for silicon that was in at the time,
10:53we can make a plasma similar to that
10:55which one has in the shell of a carbon star.
10:59We could simulate that chemistry
11:01and perhaps make the carbon change
11:03that we had detected a few years earlier in space.
11:06We told him that's fine,
11:07and all this astrophysical stuff
11:09sounds very interesting,
11:10but it frankly wasn't really
11:12what we wanted to do in this laboratory.
11:14After all, we already knew
11:15everything there was to know about carbon,
11:17at least we assumed to.
11:18So we told Harry, yes, fine,
11:22some other time,
11:23maybe this year, maybe next.
11:25Besides, an experiment like Harry's
11:28had already been done.
11:29The oil company Exxon
11:31is interested in carbon.
11:33They had put graphite into a similar system.
11:35Carbon was a horrendous mess.
11:37It made the machine absolutely filthy.
11:41But one of the interesting benefits of it
11:43was that we ended up seeing
11:45a very unusual mass spectrum.
11:47This is the mass spectrum they produced.
11:49There were small clusters
11:50with odd numbers of carbon atoms,
11:53then a gap,
11:54then clusters with even numbers of atoms.
11:56They suggested unusual carbon chains.
11:59But more curious were the clusters
12:02of 60 atoms, C60,
12:04which were twice as abundant.
12:06Exxon reported these,
12:07but did not pursue it.
12:09We did not identify C60 or C70
12:12as being stable or somehow unusual.
12:15But it's never game.
12:18I think, you know, in retrospect,
12:20we can say that I was being cautious.
12:23At the time,
12:23I was being considered
12:24by most of my colleagues
12:25as being pretty wild,
12:27even daring to publish those results.
12:30Well, almost a year and a half later,
12:32after I'd been to Houston,
12:33I got the call from Bob
12:35right out of the blue.
12:36He said that Rick had decided
12:37that we could do the experiment.
12:39On one particular day,
12:40I gathered my students in and said,
12:41what's the worst possible thing
12:43that could happen?
12:44This is to Sean O'Brien, Jim Heath.
12:47And they said,
12:48Harry's coming.
12:52I was so excited.
12:54I pitched some money
12:55out of my wife's bank account,
12:57got the cheapest ticket I could,
12:58and was there within three days.
12:59Good morning, sir.
13:00Is Houston your final destination?
13:02I was keen on doing the experiment myself.
13:05I'm really absolutely over the moon
13:07that I could do it.
13:08What followed,
13:18none of them will forget.
13:24Harry did run after run
13:25of graphite vaporized by laser
13:28with graduate students to help him.
13:33Fellow chemist Bob Curl
13:35bounced ideas off the group.
13:38Rick drifted in and out
13:40to see how they did.
13:42It was basic research
13:44at its creative best.
13:50They saw evidence
13:52of the long chains of carbon atoms
13:54that Harry was sure existed in space.
13:59They also saw something else,
14:02the clusters of 60 atoms
14:04that Exxon had seen,
14:06but more of them.
14:14Again and again,
14:1560 was the cluster
14:17that carbon preferred.
14:19Now, Rick really did get interested
14:21in what Harry was doing.
14:23Why did carbon atoms
14:24form such a stable cluster?
14:26What was special
14:27about the magic number 60?
14:29If there's any element we know
14:32how it bonds,
14:34it's carbon.
14:35And we know with many examples
14:36that carbon likes to bond,
14:38usually with four other atoms.
14:40And in fact,
14:41in diamond,
14:42the pretty form of carbon,
14:45that's exactly what it does.
14:46I have a model
14:47of a little piece
14:48of a diamond lattice here.
14:50You can see that
14:50each carbon atom,
14:52for example,
14:52this little black dot,
14:54connected through these green bonds
14:56to four other carbon atoms.
14:59That is,
14:59except if they're on the surface,
15:01in which case
15:01there aren't the little black balls
15:03to connect with
15:03and these dangling bonds
15:04don't know what to do.
15:07Now,
15:07ordinary diamond
15:08doesn't have a problem with this
15:09because hydrogen
15:10is used to terminate
15:12each and every one
15:13of these bonds.
15:14And in fact,
15:15if you have a diamond ring
15:16on your finger
15:17and you touch,
15:18you move your finger
15:19across the surface of the diamond,
15:20you're not touching carbon at all.
15:22Because there's hydrogens
15:23on the surface.
15:24In fact,
15:24you're rubbing a single atomic layer
15:26of hydrogen on the surface.
15:27But we knew
15:28we didn't have any hydrogen
15:29in the machine.
15:30Well,
15:30there is another way
15:31that carbon can bond
15:32that we know about as chemists.
15:34And that's with just
15:34three other atoms.
15:36And the most common form of this,
15:39as we know,
15:39is just plain old graphite,
15:40which is,
15:41in fact,
15:42infinite planes
15:42or effectively infinite planes,
15:44huge planes
15:45of sort of chicken wire,
15:47lattices like this,
15:48connected six-membered rings.
15:49Each carbon connected
15:50with three others.
15:51And in graphite,
15:52there's one plane
15:53against another stacked up.
15:55But once again,
15:56here are these edges.
15:58These dangling bonds
16:00should attract
16:01other carbon atoms
16:02and make a cluster grow.
16:04Yet here,
16:04they had a cluster
16:05that stopped at 60.
16:07Why?
16:09We wondered
16:10what could possibly
16:11make it so strong.
16:13We thought about
16:13many possible structures.
16:15And as it went up and down
16:16like a yo-yo
16:17on various runs
16:18that we did,
16:19we came to the conclusion
16:20that perhaps
16:21it was a closed cage
16:22of some sort.
16:23Let's suppose we go back
16:24just to a single large sheet.
16:26And this has roughly
16:2660 carbon atoms.
16:28Obviously,
16:28it has a lot of dangling bonds
16:29around the edges,
16:30but suppose somehow
16:31we're able to wrap around
16:32so that these dangling bonds
16:34here could connect
16:34to those dangling bonds.
16:36Maybe there was some way
16:37of wrapping that sheet
16:38around to do it.
16:39But we couldn't really imagine
16:40how that would be done.
16:41The team toyed
16:47with a novel idea.
16:50One image
16:51which was in my mind
16:52from way back,
16:53it was that of
16:54Buckminster Fuller's dome
16:55at Expo 67.
16:58The design of
16:59lightweight spherical structures
17:01was the life's work
17:02of the architect
17:03Buckminster Fuller.
17:04360 degrees,
17:05therefore,
17:06it becomes a plane
17:07and it goes to infinity
17:08and won't return upon itself
17:09in the crown and center.
17:10It begins to get them
17:11spherical.
17:13His was the idea
17:15of the geodesic dome.
17:16These are what we call
17:18geodesic radons.
17:22In fact,
17:22one time I had considered
17:24writing to him
17:24for a job
17:25because I was interested
17:26in many of his ideas.
17:28But at the same time,
17:29I was offered a job
17:30at Sussex.
17:31And so I finally
17:32plumped for a career
17:33in science rather than
17:34one in architecture
17:34and graphics and design.
17:37Both Rick and Harry
17:38had visited
17:39the famous dome
17:40at Expo 67.
17:43I remembered
17:44going into
17:45Buckminster Fuller's dome
17:46and pushing my son
17:48in a pram
17:49up amongst
17:50the escalators
17:51and towards
17:52the struts
17:52that were
17:53the intricate structure
17:54that held
17:55the dome together.
17:56In fact,
17:57one aspect of it
17:58is that it really
17:59did seem to be
17:59made up
18:00almost completely
18:00of hexagons.
18:03Here, after all,
18:03we had a hexagonal sheet.
18:05Maybe if we figured out
18:06how Buckminster Fuller
18:08did this,
18:08we could figure out
18:09how to curl these
18:09things around
18:10on each other.
18:11The other thing
18:12that I remembered,
18:13as well as
18:13Buckminster Fuller's
18:14geodesic dome,
18:15was a star dome,
18:17a map of the sky
18:18on a polyhedron
18:19that I'd made
18:19for my sons
18:20many years beforehand.
18:22In my memory,
18:23it had hexagons,
18:24but it also had pentagons.
18:26I wondered whether
18:27he'd had 60 vertices
18:28and thought about
18:29ringing my wife
18:30and getting her
18:31to count it.
18:32But I was going home
18:33the next day,
18:34so I thought,
18:34well, I'll count it
18:35myself when I got there.
18:43At Harry's farewell dinner,
18:45they talked of layers
18:46of graphite,
18:48closed cages,
18:50and C-60.
18:51We were drawing
18:53on the serviettes
18:54and drinking
18:54Mexican beer,
18:56and really very excited
18:58about what C-60
18:59might actually be.
19:00In fact,
19:01they've taken away
19:02the serviettes
19:02in which we drew
19:03the structures,
19:04unfortunately.
19:13Rick went home,
19:14drew out,
19:15and cut up
19:15little paper hexagons.
19:17Harry went to bed
19:21thinking of the star dome
19:22stored in a box
19:23in his basement.
19:26Sixty gummy bears
19:27joined by toothpicks
19:29was the scheme
19:30adopted by graduate
19:31student Jim Heath.
19:38The candy model
19:39collapsed.
19:41The hexagons
19:43would curve
19:44only by cheating.
19:45hexagons
19:46side by side
19:47only make
19:48a flat surface.
19:55Then Rick
19:56remembered
19:57the pentagons
19:58that Harry
19:58had talked of.
20:08Hexagons
20:09around the pentagon.
20:10They automatically
20:11curved.
20:12They made
20:12a bowl shape.
20:14Then,
20:14more curves,
20:15more and more,
20:16all linking.
20:17A geodesic sphere.
20:19Sixty points,
20:21sixty carbon atoms.
20:23The shape of C-60
20:24formed in Rick's hands.
20:39I almost called
20:40to get Harry out of bed
20:41to tell them about it.
20:42But it was three o'clock
20:43in the morning.
20:44I disciplined myself
20:45to go to sleep.
20:46Crystal
20:47and me.
20:55We couldn't be
20:56the first people
20:57in the universe
20:57to have discovered
20:58this structure.
20:59They ought to know
21:00about the mathematics
21:01department.
21:01So I called up
21:02Bill Beach.
21:02I said,
21:03Bill,
21:04sorry to bother you
21:04this morning,
21:05but we have this
21:06hot new structure
21:07for a carbon molecule.
21:08And it has 12 pentagons
21:10and 20 hexagons.
21:12I wonder if you could
21:13bother asking one
21:13of your students
21:14to find out
21:14what this polyhedral
21:15object is
21:16and give us a call back.
21:18And he did call back.
21:19Bob Curl answered the phone
21:20and the mathematics chairman
21:23said,
21:23well,
21:23I could explain this
21:24to you a number of ways,
21:25Bob.
21:26But what you've got there,
21:27boys,
21:27is a soccer ball.
21:28Imagine this excitement
21:33that you've discovered
21:34a way of putting
21:3560 carbon atoms together
21:36that turns out
21:36not only to be
21:37beautifully symmetric,
21:38but it's a soccer ball, too.
21:48Their paper to nature
21:49was a front cover story.
21:53A really beautiful picture
21:54of the C60.
21:56It almost looks like
21:57you're looking at stars
21:58in the sky.
21:59It was just such
22:00a fantastic moment
22:01that as I took
22:02the plane back,
22:03I was on such a high
22:04that I don't think,
22:05I think the airplane
22:06would have actually flown
22:07without the engines running.
22:09They named their structure
22:11Buckminster Fullerene.
22:14Buckyballs.
22:18Perfect symmetry
22:19in a molecule.
22:22Symmetry enchanted
22:23the ancients.
22:25The Greeks then
22:26have one word
22:27where we need to say...
22:28A hollow cage of carbon.
22:30What properties
22:31it might bring.
22:34The Greeks believed
22:34that perfect solids
22:35encased the fundamental
22:37elements.
22:38Fire.
22:40Earth.
22:43Air.
22:45And water.
22:47The icosahedron.
22:49Slice off the points
22:50in the shape of C60.
22:52A ball of carbon.
22:54A billionth of a meter wide.
22:58Nature loves
22:59the geodesic sphere.
23:01It's seen in viruses
23:02and microscopic
23:04sea creatures.
23:06Harry and Rick
23:06had hit on
23:07a mathematical law
23:08that any number
23:09of hexagons
23:10will curve to a sphere
23:12if linked
23:13by just 12 pentagons.
23:15The Expo Dome
23:16had pentagons.
23:17A tortoise
23:19needs one
23:20to curve its shell.
23:21So did Harry Stardome.
23:23It was so beautiful
23:24that it just
23:25had to be right.
23:27But there were people
23:27that needed convincing.
23:29Quite a lot.
23:30And the question
23:31is,
23:32how could we set
23:32about proving
23:33that it had
23:34this structure?
23:36That was really
23:37the next part
23:38of the story.
23:39And to me
23:40it was something
23:40like five long years
23:42in the desert.
23:43They had never
23:44captured the elusive
23:45bucky.
23:46Only its traces.
23:47A cluster
23:51you cannot see
23:52or touch.
23:53How do you
23:54prove the shape
23:54of something
23:55measured in
23:56electric fields
23:57held for only
23:58milliseconds
23:58in a laser beam
23:59in existence
24:00only as long
24:01as the experiment?
24:04A cluster
24:05of 60 atoms
24:06was all they
24:07were certain of.
24:08The sphere,
24:09the soccer ball,
24:10all that was theory.
24:12The theory
24:13ran into trouble
24:13from those
24:14who also had seen
24:15evidence of C60
24:16before.
24:18The Exxon team
24:19argued that maybe
24:21there were no more
24:21C60 clusters
24:23than other sizes,
24:24only that conditions
24:25in the laser
24:26might make them
24:26show up more.
24:28C60 might not
24:29be special at all.
24:34In Houston,
24:35they tried to prove
24:36the structure
24:37by breaking the
24:37cluster apart
24:38and measuring
24:39pieces.
24:42This is Texas
24:43and we have
24:44big lasers
24:44and we have
24:45knobs we can
24:46turn up
24:46and we can
24:46make the laser
24:47tremendously powerful
24:49enough to drill
24:50through a hunk
24:50of metal.
24:51We found that
24:52we could finally
24:53turn it up
24:53so that, yes,
24:54finally C60
24:54would fragment.
24:56The amazing thing
24:57is that it fragmented
24:58by losing little
24:59C2 pieces,
25:00dimers of carbon.
25:01The result is
25:02just simply
25:03you've got a ball,
25:04you blast it,
25:05it allows you
25:05to get very hot,
25:06it evaporates
25:07C2 off the surface
25:08and it shrinks
25:09and as you keep
25:10blasting laser energy
25:11it shrinks more
25:11and more and more.
25:13They got readings
25:14of C58,
25:1556,
25:1754 and on down
25:18until the strain
25:19on the atoms
25:20was too great.
25:22It's just what
25:22you would expect
25:23if in fact
25:23it really were
25:24these closed cages.
25:26When you blast it
25:27there aren't any edges,
25:28no places can just
25:29fall right off
25:30so it shrinks
25:31down until finally
25:32critically at C32
25:34the next step
25:36is it bursts.
25:39For most molecules
25:40that would already
25:41have been considered
25:42a proof of the structure
25:43but this is too
25:44important a molecule
25:45to just casually
25:46say you've proved it.
25:48Exxon kept up
25:49the counterpoint.
25:50They said the whole thing
25:51could be just
25:52an experimental artifact.
25:57In Sussex,
25:58Harry's team
25:59produced more
26:00theoretical models.
26:02He worked out
26:03possible structures
26:04of other carbon
26:05clusters that had
26:06appeared in the laser.
26:08A hypothetical family
26:09of fullerenes
26:10was born.
26:12One thing that was
26:12clear was that
26:13all the pentagons
26:14were isolated
26:15and all the hexagons
26:17were linked.
26:18That seemed to be
26:19a critical factor
26:20in the stability.
26:22And I started to think
26:23at what stage
26:24that would occur again.
26:26I knew it couldn't
26:26happen for anything
26:27less than 60 atoms
26:28and as it went on
26:29higher and higher
26:30I realized that
26:31I couldn't do it again
26:32until we got to
26:34the number 70.
26:35We'd already got
26:36a structure for 70
26:38in which we take
26:39the two halves apart
26:40and we put an extra
26:4110 carbon atoms
26:42along the waist.
26:45And then I realized
26:46that this explained
26:48the second peak.
26:49Now we had found
26:50that the C60
26:51signal always had
26:53a companion,
26:54C70,
26:55and I used to call
26:56the two together
26:56the Lone Ranger
26:57in Tonto.
27:01At that point
27:02when you have
27:04a hypothesis
27:04which explains
27:05two major results
27:07then you can be sure
27:09it's right.
27:10And at that point
27:11I realized
27:12that I would not
27:12have to commit suicide
27:13over the
27:14Buckminster Fullerine idea.
27:16But these models
27:17were still only theory.
27:21And further trouble
27:22lay ahead
27:23as Croteau and Smalley
27:24strayed into an area
27:26of science
27:26where they were outsiders.
27:28It was natural
27:29to wonder
27:31about how
27:31such a beautiful
27:32molecule actually
27:33could form.
27:34And we thought
27:34that perhaps
27:35it started off
27:36as this sort of
27:38saucer-shaped structure
27:39which actually
27:41accumulated more
27:42and more carbon atoms
27:43and grew into
27:44these sort of
27:44bowl-shaped structures
27:45and further more
27:47into larger ones
27:48which actually
27:48overlapped.
27:50Some of them
27:50would actually
27:51accidentally close
27:52and form C60.
27:53But most of them
27:54we expected
27:55would overshoot
27:55and then spiral
27:56to form large structures
27:58like this
27:58ultimately ending up
28:00like this
28:01as large
28:02carbon microparticles.
28:05And then we realized
28:06that probably
28:07we had a nice
28:09explanation
28:09of the way
28:10soot particles form.
28:12Now we proposed this
28:13and it turned out
28:14to be rather contentious.
28:16Those who study combustion,
28:19so-called soot chemists,
28:21were skeptical.
28:21The mystery of how soot forms
28:24when carbon fuels burn
28:26has perplexed scientists
28:28for over a century.
28:30Its solution
28:30could have enormous consequences
28:32for industries
28:33that use fossil fuels.
28:35Croto and Smalley's model
28:36was new and surprising.
28:37The technological implications
28:40of that model,
28:41particularly the aspect
28:43of it which said
28:43that if you could
28:44terminate the growth
28:46of soot at C60
28:47so that by successfully
28:49closing the shell
28:50you would not grow
28:51larger molecules,
28:52has the technological
28:53implication
28:54that if you could
28:54actually cause that
28:55to occur
28:56in systems
28:57that generates soot,
28:58you would generate
28:59particles of such small size
29:01that they would probably
29:01not represent
29:02a significant health hazard.
29:03But critics scoffed
29:06at the idea
29:06that buckyball chemistry
29:08helped create soot.
29:12In none of the flames
29:13that soot chemists study
29:15had buckyballs
29:15ever been found.
29:18Many scientists,
29:20skeptical that C60
29:21even existed,
29:23viewed Smalley
29:24and Croto's soot proposal
29:25as more hot air.
29:27To counter their critics,
29:32they would need
29:32to capture C60
29:33in a lasting form.
29:35Harry,
29:36backed by the British government,
29:38bought a laser beam
29:39of his own.
29:40If they could hold
29:41C60 in their hands,
29:43they could explore
29:44its true properties,
29:45how it might be tied
29:47to soot
29:47and other intriguing puzzles.
29:50Harry's thoughts
29:51were on stardust.
29:53Apart from proving it,
29:54there was another
29:55major impetus,
29:56and that was
29:57the fact that
29:58I still felt
29:59that C60
30:00had some tie-up
30:01with the diffuse
30:02interstellar bands.
30:03And if that could be proven,
30:05that would solve
30:05one of the longest-lasting
30:07problems in astronomy.
30:10Could buckyballs
30:11be behind
30:12the mysterious
30:12absorption bands?
30:14Were they
30:15in the stardust?
30:19The stability
30:20of C60
30:21in intense laser light
30:22meant it might
30:23well survive
30:24if formed in space.
30:26It turns out
30:27that C60
30:28is extraordinarily
30:29photoresistant.
30:30It is the most
30:31photoresistant molecule
30:32of anything we've seen,
30:33which will be very important
30:34if C60
30:36is to be found in space
30:37because in space,
30:38molecules
30:39don't have sunglasses.
30:40You've got all
30:40these stars out there.
30:41What's to protect
30:42this molecule
30:43from getting sunburned
30:45over the hundreds
30:46of millions of years
30:47that's wandering
30:47out in space?
30:49But to find
30:50the absorption spectrum
30:51for C60,
30:52they had to make
30:53enough of it
30:54to analyze.
30:57They hoped
30:58that somewhere
30:58in the lasers,
31:00C60 had remained
31:01intact,
31:02but it was never
31:03to be found
31:04in the laser soot.
31:05So for years,
31:07actually,
31:08squandering the life
31:09of my major graduate
31:10student, Jim Heath,
31:11we scraped soots up,
31:13put them in test tubes,
31:14sloshed them around
31:15and looked,
31:16and for years,
31:16all we saw
31:17was soots
31:18sort of floating around
31:19are sitting at the bottom.
31:20Well, it's a lot of fun
31:21to do for a while,
31:22but for a year and a half
31:23it gets to be kind of boring.
31:25So we pretty well gave up.
31:31The experiment at Rice
31:33came to an uncertain end.
31:39But even without
31:40an actual sample of C60,
31:43theoreticians kept
31:44churning out paper
31:45after paper,
31:46predicting the properties
31:47of such a molecule.
31:52The perfect symmetry
31:54of C60 allowed scientists
31:56to calculate
31:57how a buckyball
31:58would rotate and vibrate.
32:01They also could calculate
32:02how the molecule
32:03and its electrons
32:05would move
32:05when struck by light.
32:08C60's absorption spectrum,
32:11at least in theory,
32:12was available in print.
32:15When Don Huffman
32:16read these predictions,
32:17they brought to mind
32:18his long-past experiment
32:20with carbon dust
32:21and the surprising
32:23double-humped band
32:24he had produced.
32:26When I saw
32:27the Crotos-Molly paper
32:28in Nature,
32:29I was very excited
32:30because I immediately
32:31began to think
32:32that perhaps
32:33the camel sample
32:34wasn't junk after all.
32:36One of the calculations
32:38had to do
32:38with the ultraviolet spectrum.
32:40To be expected,
32:41a C60 molecule
32:42which had a series
32:43of very strong bands
32:44in the ultraviolet
32:45looking something like that
32:47if I remember it,
32:48and if one put that
32:49on the same scale
32:50as our camel spectrum,
32:51there was a nice,
32:52interesting correspondence there.
32:54And this kept us wondering
32:56for a long time.
32:58Unfortunately,
32:58that was about the time
32:59when I was very busy
33:02with other things
33:03and I went to the laboratory
33:03and had trouble reproducing
33:05the camel spectrum.
33:06So he sent a graduate student
33:08to make carbon dust
33:09that would reproduce
33:10the camel.
33:12Well, this was my first job
33:13in the lab,
33:14so since not very many people
33:16expected it would work out,
33:17there wasn't really
33:18very much pressure
33:19on me to produce results.
33:22It's really a very simple experiment,
33:24which is a good thing
33:24because it was such a long shot.
33:27It's a simple, simple device.
33:29There's a carbon arc discharge
33:30in a vacuum chamber
33:31with a little helium in there.
33:33There aren't very many things
33:34you can change.
33:35We changed the tip size,
33:36we changed the voltage
33:38and the current,
33:39but it turned out
33:39that the most important thing
33:40was the pressure setting.
33:43When you have the pressure
33:44at about 100 tor,
33:46which is about a seventh
33:47of an atmosphere,
33:48those two funny bumps,
33:50the camel spectrum comes back,
33:51the thing that we had seen
33:52in Heidelberg.
34:00They sent the samples
34:01to Heidelberg,
34:03where Huffman's partner,
34:04Kretschmer,
34:04put them into
34:05an infrared spectrometer.
34:11He saw four absorption bands,
34:15which, like the camel,
34:17were predicted for C60.
34:21The main result was that
34:24those samples,
34:25which also showed
34:26this peculiar UV feature,
34:29which we called camel hump,
34:30these samples also show
34:33four infrared bands
34:34at almost exactly
34:37the same positions
34:38as predicted
34:39by theory for C60.
34:42And we did publish this,
34:44and we could show
34:45that the four infrared features,
34:48at least,
34:49they are definitely produced
34:51by carbon alone,
34:52and they are not,
34:53they are not any kind of junk.
34:55At the same time,
34:56we were very alarmed,
34:57because in publishing
34:59the letter on the dust,
35:02we had essentially
35:03given away the secret,
35:05and if we could figure out
35:07how to extract C60
35:08from the soot,
35:09then any real chemist
35:10certainly could,
35:10and they probably
35:12were falling right behind us.
35:13So the secret was out.
35:15Kretschmer presented
35:16their results
35:17at an astronomy conference
35:18in Capri,
35:19and the paper
35:20found its way
35:20to Harry Croteau.
35:22Well, I received this paper,
35:24which my juror sent to me,
35:26and he wrote on the top,
35:27Harry,
35:28presented at Capri,
35:30do you believe this?
35:31Question mark.
35:33When I read it,
35:34it was such a simple way
35:35of making C60.
35:37I just couldn't believe it.
35:40Kretschmer's paper
35:41showed how to make
35:42carbon dust
35:43containing C60.
35:46Croteau wanted
35:46to go a step further
35:48to extract C60
35:50from the soot.
35:52He set two graduate students
35:54to the task.
35:58The race was on.
36:10This is pretty ropey old stuff.
36:12When me and Amit
36:13first worked on it,
36:14it worked for about
36:15three or four days,
36:16and then all the electronics
36:17had just burnt out,
36:18so I had to rebuild
36:19all the equipment.
36:21One of the things
36:22that we could do
36:23was the mass spec,
36:24and downstairs
36:25this was run by
36:26Ali Abdel Sader.
36:28And in fact,
36:29this is what happened.
36:32The sample was run
36:33while I was away
36:33in Scotland
36:34on holiday,
36:35and we got this
36:36fantastic result.
36:38Ali came down,
36:38clutching this bit of paper,
36:40saying,
36:40oh, we have fantastic news.
36:42Do you want the good
36:42or the bad news?
36:44And the good news
36:44was that they got
36:45this peak
36:46where we expected
36:46for C60,
36:48and the bad news
36:49was that the machine
36:49broke down
36:50so we couldn't repeat it.
36:52They'd made C60,
36:54but how to separate
36:55it from the soot?
36:56We'd been collecting it
36:58for several months.
36:59So one Friday,
37:01one brave Friday,
37:02I had, I suppose,
37:04perhaps half this full of soot,
37:07and I thought
37:08I'd better do something.
37:09And one idea,
37:10it was just simply
37:10using a solvent
37:11to try and dissolve
37:12C60 out.
37:13So I got half
37:15of the soot I produced,
37:16and I basically
37:18just got some benzene,
37:19put it in the tube,
37:21and shook it up
37:22with the soot.
37:24Just shook it up,
37:26put it on the top
37:26of the shelf,
37:27and left it there
37:28over the weekend.
37:31When I came in
37:32on Monday morning,
37:33there was this red solution.
37:35I went round
37:36the laboratory going,
37:37look, C60,
37:37C60's in here,
37:38and everyone was still
37:39going, yeah, okay, John.
37:41But it worked out
37:42in the end,
37:43and in fact,
37:43that's exactly what it was.
37:45For five days,
37:46Harry thought
37:46they had the first solution
37:48of C60,
37:49but then...
37:50Well, I had a call
37:51from Nature,
37:53the journal,
37:54and they said,
37:55would I referee this paper?
37:57So I said,
37:58fair enough,
37:58I knew a fair amount
37:59about this topic.
38:01And they faxed me
38:02a copy of their paper,
38:04and it was a bombshell.
38:07There they had
38:08beautiful crystals,
38:09they had infrared,
38:11they had an x-ray structure.
38:12They had made the molecule
38:14beyond all doubt,
38:15and we had been
38:17pipped to the post.
38:18It was, of course,
38:19Huffman and Kratzmer's paper.
38:20The amazing thing
38:22is that the whole process
38:23was so incredibly simple.
38:24Once we found
38:25that the carbon-60
38:26was soluble
38:27as a red liquid,
38:29all we had to do
38:29is dry it out,
38:30and that left us
38:31with the solid
38:31that we're so eagerly seeking.
38:34The easy way to do that
38:35is just pour it
38:36on a hot plate
38:36and let it dry
38:37for a few minutes,
38:38and there's the solid
38:39that we wanted
38:40to do the experiments with.
38:42Now, the way
38:42it really happened
38:43was Kratzmer
38:44called me from Germany
38:45and said,
38:46if you just take
38:47a little vial
38:48of the red material
38:49and you put a drop
38:50of it on a microscope slide,
38:52then you will see
38:53an incredibly beautiful side.
38:55So I reproduced
38:56the experiment
38:57by putting a tiny drop
38:58of the red liquid
39:00on a microscope slide,
39:02and in just a very few seconds,
39:07as a matter of fact,
39:08I was able to see
39:09these beautiful
39:10little crystals
39:11which were hexagonal platelets
39:14of brownish-orange color.
39:18No longer fleeting traces
39:20in a laser.
39:21What Hoffman saw
39:22was a new solid,
39:24pure carbon crystals.
39:27We realized by this time
39:29that we were surely seeing
39:30a crystalline form
39:32of carbon-60,
39:33which was really
39:34a genuinely new form
39:35of carbon,
39:36and that we were probably
39:37the first people on Earth
39:38ever to even see this sight.
39:40This is the first-ever film
39:42of a new carbon,
39:44buckyballs crystallizing
39:45before your eyes.
39:46And as a solid-state physicist,
39:49it was incredibly nice
39:50to be able to say,
39:51aha, now we've got something
39:53that we can really begin
39:54to experiment with.
39:55We can see it
39:56and work with it.
39:57And that was really
39:58the moment of high excitement
39:59for me.
40:01And here, suddenly,
40:02from a stunningly simple technique,
40:05by physicists, my God,
40:06not chemists,
40:07was the first macroscopic
40:09isolated amounts of carbon.
40:11Of course, we'd been scooped,
40:13but it was so wonderful.
40:14The solid form of C-60
40:17called fullerite
40:18was examined
40:19with a scanning
40:20tunneling microscope.
40:21The image is fuzzy
40:23because the buckyballs
40:24are spinning,
40:25but the structure
40:25and size of the molecules
40:27were confirmed.
40:29Well, looking back at it now,
40:31after I've talked to Harry and Rick
40:32and gotten to know them
40:33pretty well,
40:34I can't help but feel
40:35a little bit sorry for them
40:37because they were trying
40:38so hard to see
40:39the yellow stuff,
40:41and we were sort of
40:43had it in our hands
40:44all the time.
40:45In a sense,
40:46tried too hard
40:46with high technology
40:47and not just simply
40:49gone down
40:49and tried the simplest thing.
40:50Let's just evaporate carbon,
40:52collect the soot
40:52and see what happens.
40:55But no matter,
40:56I mean,
40:57if we'd done it early on,
40:58then Huffman and Kreishmer
40:59couldn't have had
40:59so much fun.
41:25Chemists the world over
41:26set out to make C-60,
41:28and there was a surge
41:30in sales of arc welders.
41:34The pioneering spirit
41:36of Bucky mania
41:37led to some rather
41:39unlikely contraptions.
41:46This apparatus
41:47should be in the
41:48Guinness Book of Records
41:49for the most number
41:50of arc welding power supplies
41:51ever connected
41:52in parallel at any time.
41:54We need that many
41:55power supplies
41:55because we're vaporizing
41:57big sticks of graphite here,
41:58half-inch diameter.
42:00We feed one in
42:00from either side here
42:01with some screw mechanisms.
42:03When they meet in the middle,
42:04the arc that's formed
42:05is really quite ferocious.
42:07We do that
42:07because we want to vaporize
42:08and make a lot of Bucky's.
42:10But when we do it
42:10in this chamber,
42:11we have to get them
42:11out of there quickly,
42:12so we actually suck them out
42:13through the top here
42:14with something that's
42:15very much like
42:16a vacuum cleaner.
42:17In fact,
42:17it is a vacuum cleaner.
42:18It's my personal home
42:20vacuum cleaner
42:21back in the back
42:22from Sears.
42:22And once again,
42:23a Sears Kenmore
42:24vacuum cleaner bag
42:25here to collect this in.
42:26We're actually
42:26a one-stop shopper
42:28at Sears.
42:29From biochemistry
42:31to solid-state physics,
42:33Bucky Balls spawn
42:34new basic research.
42:36These remarkable molecules
42:38of carbon impact
42:39a wide range
42:40of sciences.
42:42In particular,
42:43C60 has shaken up
42:45organic chemistry
42:46on campuses
42:47and in industrial labs.
42:51Organic chemistry
42:51is the study
42:52of the molecules
42:53that make up living things,
42:55and living things
42:55are carbon-based.
42:58Fullerenes have added
42:59an entirely new dimension.
43:03Now we have
43:03a spherical molecule.
43:04We have benzene rings
43:05that are assembled
43:07in three dimensions
43:08on a sphere.
43:10And the chemistry
43:10and the rules
43:11of the chemistry
43:12of Bucky's
43:13and Fulleren
43:13are entirely different
43:14from those
43:15that we are
43:16known to use,
43:17so we have to
43:18invent new chemistry.
43:21At UCLA,
43:22they've looked
43:22at a bigger Fulleren
43:23called C76,
43:25which comes
43:26in two varieties.
43:29We see here
43:30in this compound
43:31of 76,
43:32we see a helix
43:33that winds
43:34clockwise.
43:36In the other
43:37compound of 76,
43:39we see a helix
43:40that winds
43:41counterclockwise.
43:42now, this is a general
43:44principle in the
43:45biological world.
43:47All biological material,
43:49sugars,
43:50DNA,
43:51peptides,
43:52proteins,
43:53are either left-handed
43:54or right-handed.
43:57Life is handed.
43:58Out of graphite,
43:59an inorganic,
44:01flat material,
44:02we have made
44:03helical material,
44:04just like biological material.
44:06And this might be
44:07very interesting
44:07and might have
44:09importance for
44:10the origin of life.
44:12Buckyballs also
44:13could radically
44:14shape technologies
44:15of the future,
44:16from super-strong
44:17fibers
44:18to superconductors.
44:21Superconductivity
44:22allows the flow
44:23of electricity
44:24with no energy loss.
44:25It is the principle
44:26behind this
44:27experimental,
44:28levitating train.
44:29But current
44:31superconductors
44:32are impractical
44:33for widespread use
44:34and scientists
44:35continue the search
44:36for better ones.
44:39Fullerene-based
44:40superconductors
44:41may ultimately
44:41hold answers.
44:44AT&T's
44:44Bell Laboratories
44:45has grown crystals
44:46of C60
44:47and put potassium atoms
44:49in the spaces
44:50of the crystal lattice.
44:52They found the crystal
44:53was an electrical conductor.
44:55Three weeks later,
44:56that it was a superconductor
44:58with no resistance
44:59to electricity.
45:02That drew even more
45:03scientists to work
45:05on C60.
45:07I happen to have been
45:08asked to be a referee
45:10on the conductivity paper
45:12from Bell Labs, however,
45:13and I'll never forget
45:14the day I received that
45:16and opened it up
45:17and looked
45:17and there were
45:1818 authors
45:20on the paper
45:21and I began to think,
45:22what am I doing
45:23in this field?
45:24I am a lone researcher
45:26with a colleague
45:27in Germany
45:27competing with
45:29one of the finest
45:30groups in the world.
45:31Here I am
45:32receiving telephone calls
45:34from all over the world
45:35and not only can I
45:36not compete with
45:37Bell Lab,
45:38but I can't even hardly
45:39answer all the
45:40telephone calls I get.
45:43Exxon also has
45:44become excited
45:45about the potential
45:46of C60
45:46and has assigned
45:47scientists
45:48to many areas
45:49of Fullerene research.
45:51Hello, my name is Don Cox.
45:55I am currently
45:55the project leader
45:56Hello, my name is
45:57Sergio Goran.
45:58I prepare and characterize
46:00solvent-containing
46:02Fullerene crystals.
46:03Hi, I'm Hans Thoman
46:05and I'm exploring
46:05the uses of Fullerene.
46:07Hi, I'm Ravi Upasni
46:08and I'm involved
46:10in synthesis
46:10and characterization
46:11of functionalization.
46:12I'm Bill Shriver.
46:13I study the selectivity
46:14of Fullerene reactions.
46:15I'm Long Chen.
46:16and we are working
46:17on the functionalization
46:18chemistry of C60 materials.
46:20Hi, I'm Glenn Miller
46:21and I'm studying
46:21the reactivity
46:22and structure
46:23of cationic and anionic...
46:25One of our interests
46:26is to see
46:27what it is
46:27that you can do
46:28with C60
46:29once you make it
46:31behave differently
46:32than it does
46:32just as a pure material.
46:35And part of our
46:36research strategy
46:37is to, in fact,
46:38try to find
46:39if it can impact
46:39on the larger arena,
46:43perhaps an appropriate
46:45oil additive.
46:45Certainly, we would love
46:46to be the company
46:47that, in fact,
46:48finds a way
46:49of putting a Fullerene
46:50into a can of oil
46:51that would improve
46:53the performance
46:53of angel oils.
46:55I'd love to be
46:56the first company
46:56to do that.
46:59Carbon-60 is just
47:00a starting point
47:01for researchers.
47:03A whole new family
47:04of molecules
47:05is emerging.
47:06Chains of buckyballs,
47:08polymers,
47:08molecular wires,
47:10all become possible.
47:12The basic properties
47:13and possible uses
47:15of this new breed
47:17of molecules
47:17are only beginning
47:19to be explored.
47:22At the Naval Research Laboratory,
47:25scientists have calculated
47:26the strength
47:27of the atomic bonds
47:28of a buckyball.
47:30Fired in a computer
47:31at a theoretical diamond surface
47:34with enough calculated energy
47:35to split any other molecule
47:37asunder,
47:38C60 would simply bounce.
47:40The geodesic properties
47:44that made Buckminster Fuller's dome
47:46so strong
47:47also apply
47:48at the molecular scale.
47:52You have this
47:53rather beautiful structure
47:55in many different forms,
47:57but they're all pretty nice.
47:58And one can imagine
47:59trying to find ways
48:00of linking these materials together.
48:02And there's a lot of interest
48:04in trying to build
48:06essentially buckyball structures.
48:10Now,
48:10what those materials
48:11will turn out
48:11once you've successfully built them,
48:14I cannot predict.
48:15We could coalesce
48:16the balls together.
48:17For example,
48:17just two balls together
48:18if they're C60.
48:20If we coalesce them together,
48:21we'll look something like
48:22this object,
48:24which is a coalesced
48:25bucky tube,
48:26as it's currently called.
48:27It's a hollow
48:29graphitic tube.
48:29It's this long
48:30and this molecule,
48:31but you could imagine
48:32it getting infinitely long
48:33to be a fiber,
48:34for that matter,
48:35or short various lengths.
48:37Think of these tubes
48:38as being pipes
48:39in a nanometer architecture
48:41and construction projects
48:43to build houses,
48:45factories,
48:46that all exist
48:46on a nanometer scale
48:48where we can make
48:49who knows what,
48:50catalytic reaction centers,
48:53photosynthetic centers,
48:55semiconducting devices,
48:57a whole range of technology
48:59may be waiting for us
49:00on the nanometer scale.
49:02These bucky tubes
49:03are super strong fibers
49:05with diamond-like strength,
49:07yet flexible and resilient.
49:09Perhaps one day,
49:11the basis of earthquake-proof cables
49:13and all sorts of materials.
49:16Scientists have now trapped
49:18a host of different atoms,
49:20even radioactive ones,
49:21inside C60,
49:23creating bucky cages.
49:25The race to catch a buckyball
49:28may be over,
49:29but a new era of research
49:31has just begun.
49:34It took questions
49:35about the nature of stardust
49:37to lead unexpectedly
49:39to this burgeoning new science.
49:42I remember getting
49:43to the breakfast table
49:45one morning
49:45and asking in all sincerity
49:47to my kids and my wife,
49:50am I really dreaming about this?
49:52Is it possible
49:53we really have found
49:54a new form of carbon
49:55because we're not all
49:56that brilliant people
49:58and why did it happen to us?
50:01When it certainly could have happened
50:02to many, many people
50:03along the way, I think.
50:05All it needed
50:06was someone
50:06to do this experiment.
50:08In fact,
50:08the arc lamps in projectors
50:11that one used to see
50:13in the old days,
50:14they must have been making C60.
50:17If someone had looked
50:18at the material
50:18inside those bulbs,
50:19they would have been able
50:21to extract C60
50:21a long time ago.
50:23We know that it's
50:24in Bunsen burners,
50:25so everyone,
50:26when they were at school,
50:27who switched on
50:27to Bunsen burner
50:28and turned it to yellow
50:29has actually made C60.
50:32Once you know
50:33it might be there,
50:34and then you go to look
50:35for this rather elusive character,
50:37you may find it.
50:38Since C60 was captured
50:40in a lasting form,
50:42scientists have looked for it
50:43in every conceivable
50:44natural source.
50:46Ironically,
50:47one of the few places
50:48it has been found so far
50:50is in the deposit
50:51from laboratory
50:52benzene combustion
50:54in the soot
50:55that soot chemists
50:56have been studying
50:57for years.
50:59Now that it's been found
51:01in a flame
51:02and that one can extract
51:03C60 from soot,
51:05it looks as though
51:07the soot community
51:08now will give us
51:08a little bit more credit
51:09for possibly being right
51:11than they were prepared
51:12to do at the time.
51:13Where soot chemists
51:16once doubted
51:17C60 even existed
51:18in flames,
51:19they now see
51:20a low-pressure flame system
51:22as one of the best ways
51:23to make buckyballs.
51:28Buckyballs today,
51:29created for research,
51:31soon could be called upon
51:32for industrial use.
51:36We spent five years now
51:38working with this molecule
51:39and to some extent
51:41the science of C60
51:42has changed.
51:44It's become technology
51:45in some areas.
51:46People have it in their hands.
51:47It's no longer
51:48a figment of one's imagination.
51:51For me,
51:52we're going to do
51:53some work in this area.
51:55We're going to probe
51:55its organic properties.
51:57We're going to probe
51:58some applications
51:59in soot chemistry.
52:01But part of my work
52:02will go in a different direction.
52:04Everyone seems to be
52:05jumping on the bandwagon
52:06of doing carbon-60 research.
52:08And this is something
52:09that happens in science,
52:11but it worries me
52:12a little bit, frankly,
52:14as to my involvement in it
52:16because I tend to like
52:18to be off by myself.
52:19That's one reason
52:20I like to live in Arizona
52:21because I don't like
52:22crowds very much.
52:24Really, I like working
52:25in the dark.
52:25For me, science is
52:27something to do with fun
52:28and solving puzzles
52:30where I really don't know
52:32what the answer is.
52:33To some extent,
52:34I know too much
52:35about C-60 now.
52:36I have a difficult decision
52:38to make as to whether
52:39or not to continue
52:40in the many interesting things
52:41that there still are to do
52:43in fullerene research
52:44or whether it's time
52:45to go chase
52:46some more obscure puzzles
52:49that still are out there
52:51to be solved.
52:53But what about
52:54the initial stardust puzzle?
52:57This is a kind of irony
52:59of the whole story
53:00that even though
53:01we found C-60
53:02and we were keen
53:03to observe it
53:06or to say that
53:07this may also be
53:08abundant in interstellar space.
53:11At least in my view,
53:12it looks like
53:12that it is not abundant,
53:14very abundant at all
53:15in interstellar space.
53:16If that's so,
53:17of course, in a sense,
53:18we've all been failures
53:19in this,
53:20but what a wonderful failure
53:22it's been, actually.
53:23I take it not really
53:24as a disappointment.
53:28I believe it is there
53:30and it would be rather nice
53:32to feel that, in fact,
53:33we were on the right track.
53:35There are some interesting
53:36features in space
53:37and C-60 certainly
53:39can fit them better
53:40than any other proposal
53:41that has been made up to now.
53:43I'm a believer
53:43and I think ultimately
53:44we'll find that it is there.
53:46But others say C-60
53:48is nothing like a match
53:49for the mysterious
53:50absorption vans.
53:51they're wrong.
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56:04Could you be at risk?
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56:10Follow our cameras for a glimpse at what may be lurking in the air you breathe.
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