Deflated Bucky Balls

Sad news...
Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley passed away today. He was just 62 years old.

"Rick was incredibly creative and had the ability to make his creative vision a reality," said Robert Curl, professor emeritus of chemistry at Rice University and
one of the men with which Smalley shared the Prize. "His mind was like a searchlight bringing whatever it looked at into clarity."

My lament is that I only now hear of him after he's fallen off the raft. I need to make a point of appreciating these folk while they're still with us.

Smalley and friends discovered, get this: Bucky Balls.

Bucky Balls, besides being a fun phrase to say--over and over again--, are "the roundest and most symmetrical large molecule known to man." (http://www.nanotech-now.com)

But it doesn't stop there, Bucky Balls are officially known as, I kid you not: Buckministerfullerine, named so because they are reminiscent, in shape, of the
geo-desic domes made famous by the American architect.

Apparently, Buckministerfullerine (I don't know which I enjoy saying more) is a carbon molecule instrumental in improving the world of nanotechnology. Thus
re-affirming that the kid at the end of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was right, "the world is getting bigger AND smaller... SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
RULES!"

Final note, I'm still in the process of clarifying this information, but a couple of web-sites report that Buckministerfullerine was named "Molecule of the Year". What year? I don't know, but that's one awards ceremony I want to attend, or at least work the red carpet. Can you imagine?

"Dr. Smalley, Dr. Smalley, who are you wearing?"
"Are the rumors true? Is Jane Pauley carrying your love-child?"
"Will she change her name to Jane Pauley-Smalley?"

...perhaps in a parallel universe.

Yours in nanotechnology,
C. Buckminster Lewis