• Question: What is fullerenes

    Asked by anon-226285 to Sameed on 11 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Sameed Muhammed

      Sameed Muhammed answered on 11 Nov 2019:

      Imagine you have a limited number of Carbon atoms and you want to join them into a cool object. You can put them together to make a tube, or a ball, or any other shape that you like. When this shape is closed (like a ball) or partially closed (like a tube), then such an object is called a Fullerene. A scientist called Buckminster Fuller discovered these shapes (which is why the name).

      By the way the spherical shape of 60 carbon atoms is called buckyballs, and the tube structures made of carbon are called nanotubes or buckytubes.

      I hope this makes some sense. Feel free to ask a follow-up question for more details 🙂

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