Fullerene on Google Homepage Commemorates 25th Anniversary of Discovery of the Buckyball (video) « Frugal Café Blog Zone

Fullerene on Google Homepage Commemorates 25th Anniversary of Discovery of the Buckyball (video)

Posted By on September 4, 2010

Google logo celebrates 25th anniversary of the buckyball

Twenty-five years ago today, on September 4, 1985, the buckyball was discovered at Rice University, and Google is commemorating that scientific discovery with today’s doodle logo on its homepage — the buckyball image is interactive.

For those not familiar with a buckyball (is sometimes spelled “bucky ball”), which is officially called a fullerene, here is Wikipedia’s explanation:

A fullerene is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are also called buckyballs, and cylindrical ones are called carbon nanotubes or buckytubes. Fullerenes are similar in structure to graphite, which is composed of stacked graphene sheets of linked hexagonal rings; but they may also contain pentagonal (or sometimes heptagonal) rings.

The first fullerene to be discovered, and the family’s namesake, was buckminsterfullerene (C60), prepared in 1985 by Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, James Heath, Sean O’Brien, and Harold Kroto at Rice University. The name was an homage to Richard Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes it resembles. Fullerenes have since been found to occur (if rarely) in nature.

The discovery of fullerenes greatly expanded the number of known carbon allotropes, which until recently were limited to graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon such as soot and charcoal. Buckyballs and buckytubes have been the subject of intense research, both for their unique chemistry and for their technological applications, especially in materials science, electronics, and nanotechnology.

From Buzztab, Google celebrates Buckyball with a new doodle:

Google has a new doodle in its collection and this time it’s an animated buckyball. Google is celebrating the 25th anniversary of buckyball through an interactive animated doodle. Naturally, many Google users are wondering about buckyball. Buckyball is a carbon molecule structure which was discovered in 1985 by James Heath and several other scientists at the Rice University.

Shaped like a hollow sphere, the buckyball is strictly composed of carbon atoms. A model structure of buckyball could be like a wire-framed football. Buckyball is the first ball-shaped molecule of the family of carbon molecules.

Since the discovery of buckyball, several molecules with similar arrangements have been found for instance, nano onions and bucktubes etc. With the discovery of buckyball, a whole new domain of research on carbon allotropes opened up.

After its discovery, buckyball was extensively studied for its possible usage in electronics.

Here’s a brief video of today’s interactive Google logo:

 

From TechBlog, Bucky Ball Google Logo Commemorates 25th Anniversary:

According to YouTube user “kautalia”, Google changed its logo to an animated bucky ball at midnight worldwide today “to commemorate the 25th anniversary of bucky balls – named for carbon molecules that make such a shape resembling the pattern of a soccer ball.”

 

Assortment of previous Google home page doodle logos:

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One Response to “Fullerene on Google Homepage Commemorates 25th Anniversary of Discovery of the Buckyball (video)”

  1. Google Homepage | Daily hot and wonderful news says:
    September 7, 2010 at 2:32 AM

    [...] Google Homepage Written by Dr. K. Josh News Sep 7, 2010 Fullerene on Google Homepage Commemorates 25th Anniversary of Discovery of the Buckyball (video)Twenty-five years ago today, on September 4, 1985, the buckyball was discovered at Rice University, and Google is commemorating that scientific discovery with today’s doodle logo on its homepage — the buckyball image is interactive. For those not familiar with a buckyball (is sometimes spelled “bucky ball”), which is officially called a fullerene, here is [...]. [...]

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