Sir Harry Kroto obituary

Chemist who won the Nobel prize for his role in discovering buckminsterfullerenes, also known as 'buckyballs'

Sir Harry Kroto, who has died aged 76, was awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1996 for his part in the discovery of buckminsterfullerenes, also known as "buckyballs" - carbon atoms found in the form of a ball. In 1985 Harry, then professor of chemistry at the University of Sussex, had teamed up with Rick Smalley and Robert Curl, both professors of chemistry at Rice University, in Houston, Texas, to laser-vaporise carbon in laboratory experiments designed to simulate the chemistry of stars and interstellar space. Their experiments appeared to indicate that they had made an unexpected molecular species comprising 60 carbon atoms. This was amazing. Carbon had long been known to exist as diamond or graphite, but carbon as a small molecule required completely new thinking.

This was where Harry drew on his artistic side and a knowledge of graphic design: he proposed that C₆₀ was made up of a mixture of pentagons and hexagons, a structure known in ancient times, and now ubiquitous in footballs and in the work of the US architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller. But at first nobody could prove it, and many were openly sceptical.

Continue reading...