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| Posted 10.01.05 |
Nobel Laureate Speaks to Classes, Leads Symposium
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First-year chemistry students will have the
opportunity to spend some time with a Nobel Laureate at Wesleyan.
Sir Harry Kroto, professor of chemistry at Florida State University, will lecture to chemistry classes at 9 a.m. Oct. 31 in
room 84 of Hall-Atwater. Kroto shared the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry in 1996 for discovering C60, a new form of carbon.
In addition, Kroto will present a chemistry symposium titled “Architecture
in Nanospace,” at 4 p.m. Oct. 31, also in HA 84, or Exley Science Center 150
if attendance requires it. This symposium will be open
to the public.
Formerly a professor at the University of Sussex in Brighton, United
Kingdom, Sir Harry has studied carbon chains in space, was a pioneer in the
spectroscopic study of molecules with multiple bonds between carbon and
phosphorus, and, in his Nobel Prize winning work, discovered and new form of
elemental carbon.
“I never dreamed of winning the Nobel Prize,” Kroto wrote in his
Nobel-related biography. “Indeed I was very happy with my scientific work
prior to the discovery of C60 … and even if I did not do anything else as
significant I would have felt quite successful as a scientist.”
Stewart Novick, professor of chemistry, invited Kroto to speak at Wesleyan.
They first met at Wesleyan’s annual Leermakers Symposium in 1992. Novick and
David Westmoreland, associate professor of chemistry, are combining their
CHEM 143 and CHEM 141 classes on Oct. 31 so Kroto can lecture to both
introductory chemistry classes at once.
Novick considers Kroto to be a world class researcher who is deeply
committed to science education.
“It is characteristic of him that, in addition to the cutting-edge research
lecture he is presenting in the afternoon, he will take time in the morning
to present a more generally accessible talk to some of the newest members of
the scientific community, the students in our introductory courses,” Novick
says. “Harry is a spellbinding speaker and we are certain that everyone will
enjoy his perspectives on one of the most important and astounding chemical
discoveries of the last 50 years.”
Krotto shares the Nobel with Robert Curl Jr. and Richard Smalley, both of
Rice University in Houston, Texas. The trio made their discovery during a
period of eleven days in 1985. When fine-tuning their experiment, they
produced clusters with 60 carbon atoms or C60. This symmetrical molecular
structure resembled a geodetic dome designed by American architect R.
Buckminster Fuller for the 1967 Montreal World Exhibition. Hence, the
scholars named their structure ‘buckminsterfullerene’ or ‘fullerene’, for
short. |
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| By
Olivia Bartlett, The Wesleyan Connection
editor |
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