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This book tells the fascinating story of the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, a perfectly symmetrical soccer-ball shaped molecule composed of 60 carbon atoms. This new molecule, one of a large family of carbon cage molecules called "fullerenes"--represents a new form of carbon, complementing such well-known materials as diamond and graphite. Its discovery has revolutionized our understanding of carbon, once the most familiar elements. It has heralded a new chemistry, a new range of high-temperature superconductors and some marvelous new concepts in the architecture of large carbon structures. In this account, prize-winning science writer Jim Baggott tells the compelling story of buckminsterfullerene, from its natural occurrence in the cold chemistry of interstellar clouds to its accidental, stunning creation in a modern chemistry laboratory, and the subsequent development of one of today's fastest-growing scientific fields. By combining a lucid and entertaining style with scientific accuracy, the author has written a book that will appeal to general readers and chemists alike.

Buckminsterfullerene. --- 546.26 --- Buckminsterfullerene --- #WSCH:ETOS --- Buckyball --- Buckyballs --- Fullerenes --- Carbon C --- 546.26 Carbon C --- fysicochemie --- Macromolecules --- BUCKMINSTERFULLERENE --- CHEMISTRY --- SYMMETRY (PHYSICS) --- HISTORY --- 20th CENTURY --- Buckminsterfullerène. --- Fullerènes. --- Carbone. --- Fullerenes. --- Carbon.

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Everything around us is made of 'stuff', from planets, to books, to our own bodies. Whatever it is, we call it matter or material substance. It is solid; it has mass. But what is matter, exactly ? We are taught in school that matter is not continuous, but discrete. As a few of the philosophers of ancient Greece once speculated, nearly two and a half thousand years ago, matter comes in 'lumps', and science has relentlessly peeled away successive layers of matter to reveal its ultimate constituents. Surely, we can't keep doing this indefinitely. We imagine that we should eventually run up against some kind of ultimately fundamental, indivisible type of stuff, the building blocks from which everything in the Universe is made. The English physicist Paul Dirac called this 'the dream of philosophers'. But science has discovered that the foundations of our Universe are not as solid or as certain and dependable as we might have once imagined. They are instead built from ghosts and phantoms, of a peculiar quantum kind. And, at some point on this exciting journey of scientific discovery, we lost our grip on the reassuringly familiar concept of mass.How did this happen ? How did the answers to our questions become so complicated and so difficult to comprehend ? In Mass Jim Baggott explains how we come to find ourselves here, confronted by a very different understanding of the nature of matter, the origin of mass, and its implications for our understanding of the material world. Ranging from the Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus, and their theories of atoms and void, to the development of quantum field theory and the discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle, he explores our changing understanding of the nature of matter, and the fundamental related concept of mass.

530.1 --- Matter --- Quantum field theory --- Field theory (Physics) --- Particles (Nuclear physics) --- Relativistic quantum field theory --- Quantum theory --- Relativity (Physics) --- Physical properties of matter --- Properties of matter --- Mechanics --- Diffusion --- Elementary particles (Physics) --- High energy physics --- Nuclear particles --- Nucleons --- Nuclear physics --- Classical field theory --- Continuum physics --- Physics --- Continuum mechanics --- 530.1 Basic principles of physics --- Basic principles of physics --- Properties --- Mass (Physics) --- Masse (physique) --- Matière --- Properties. --- Propriétés. --- Philosophy of science --- Quantum mechanics. Quantumfield theory --- Matière --- Propriétés.