Perfect Symmetry: Accidental Discovery of a New Form of Buckminsterfullerene - Hardcover

Baggott, J.E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198557906 ISBN 13: 9780198557906

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1994

Synopsis

This book documents the fascinating story of the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, the soccer-ball-shaped cage of carbon atoms that has seized the imagination of research chemists around the world. There is a dramatic human story in the personalities involved in making the discovery (research teams in Britain, the USA, and Germany), but the discovery itself is a paradigm for the way science works - collaborative research efforts, serendipity, the structure of research groups (who does what), "big" science versus "little" science, the motivation of fame and recognition for a major discovery.

About this title

Review

"Provides an overview of the state of the field that is as well informed and as up to date as one could wish.... Lavishly illustrated, largely with figures from the original sources.... Very well written and rewarding. You will get an excellent account of the story." --Nature

From the Author

About the author
Jim Baggott was born in Southampton, England, in 1957. He graduated in chemistry in 1978 and completed his doctorate at Oxford in 1981. Following a tour of duty as a postgraduate research fellow at Oxford and at Stanford University in California, he returned to England in 1983 to take up a lectureship at the University of Reading. After a further five years of academic life, he decided on a complete change of career direction and now works for a major multinational oil company. He maintains a broad interest in science and philosophy, and writed on both these subjects in his spare time. He has been awarded prizes both for his experimental research and his science writing. His first book, "The meaning of Quantum Theory", was published by Oxford University Press in 1992. He is married, with one son Tim and a daughter Emma.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198557906
• ISBN 13: 9780198557906
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 326