Most of us are probably watching the Soccer World Cup, which has been going on in Brazil since June 12. Even chemists have a thing for all things round, and not only on the soccer field!

Are you familiar with fullerenes? They are truly astounding structures, because they resemble miniature footballs/soccer balls, from which their common name is derived: "football molecules." Discoverers Harold Walter Kroto and Richard Smalley named the C60 molecule a "buckminsterfullerene," after the prominent architect R. Buckminster Fuller, who had caused a stir at the World Fair in Montreal with his geodesic dome.  

The researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for their discovery. On account of their spherical structure, fullerenes are very versatile: they can be useful in medicine or even photovoltaics.

What is the "fullerene principle?" A real buckminsterfullerene sphere has 12 black pentagons isolated by 20 white hexagons. This is the only means of forming a sphere and is referred to as the fullerene principle.

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