Buckyball: Tiny Carbon Soccer Balls

[@gabrielgomesbrito]

My father was a blackbelt in karate and I only found out after I was 15 years old. I confirm, it was quite a shock.

[@dagothur7171]

Doctor BrainTaser you mean he was a benzene ring

[@StuartSafford]

"It does nothing in particular and does it very well." Great quote.

[@rosalyn6344]

🤦🏽‍♂️

[@bunyabunyatv853]

it does so much itll take small minds (like yours) twenty five years to find out what....

[@thefitnessgrampacertest9057]

my life, except the ‘does very well’ part.

[@SilentEire]

This is the one of the very rare occasions were scientists actually give something a cool name. Buckyball's, buckybomb's. Are you kidding me?!? XD

[@seigeengine]

Conor Kinsella I prefer buckminsterfullerene. Buckyballs sound silly, but buckminsterfullerene ain't got time for your shit.

[@grug1343]

@@seigeengine yea, i feel bad for Bucky's balls

[@sirevilmustache9567]

Science: When in doubt, shoot lasers at it.

[@SketchAndEtch]

Sir Evilmustache Actually it's sort of a "tried and true method" for random discoveries by now. Lately we "sort-of-kinda-by-accident-almost-maybe" (to be confirmed) sent some photons into "warps speed" by shooting a laser at an experiemtnal space propulsion engine type because some researchers just fancied the idea at the time

[@cortster12]

SketchAndEtch I heard it as well, but nothing official as of yet.

[@geniusmp2001]

Sir Evilmustache The funny part? When they were invented, lasers were called "a solution looking for a problem". Yeah, you could make coherent light. So what? What could you do with it? Turns out, basically all the things.

[@cortster12]

Matthew Prorok I call lasers the Swiss army knife of the scientific world.

[@SketchAndEtch]

Jeremy Smith Well, atm it's neither "true" or"untrue" since we don't really understand what happened back there. All we know is that photons acted in a way they weren't supposed to, and that's about it. A lot of further research and stuff will be requiret to understand what that really was and why did it happen.

[@mattapplepie]

Every time he said buckyball I just thought about Captain Americas sidekick! Still an interesting episode even if I knew most of the science already, the history stuff was interesting!

[@osaydb]

Matt Appleton same here bro

[@MsSqueashy]

I'm with you guys till the end of the line

[@Gkkiux]

Matt Appleton I thought of the neodymium magnet brand. Weird

[@ninjaturtletyke55555]

Matt Appleton I kept thinking of One piece when he said buckyball. Bucky the Pirate and his highly explosive buckyball.

[@LightningSe7en]

Squeashy No likes for the movie line reference? These people are scrubs.

[@MBogdos96]

1:59 60 Carbon atoms with 12 protons each. Pretty sure Carbon only has 6 protons. Maybe you meant nucleons?

[@MysticKenji2]

MBogdos96 Yeah, he definitely meant nucleons.

[@FlyingJetpack1]

MBogdos96 He most likely ment the atomic mass number

[@Solardarity]

FlyingJetpack1 yeah, when he quoted the number 720, he was referring to the molecular weight of C60, and 12 the molecular weight of each carbon atom. Slight typo on the show.

[@FlyingJetpack1]

***** Someone didn't get their full sleep in the office of scishow. My teacher will whip us if we will make such a mistake (It can really cost a test >_

[@MBogdos96]

FlyingJetpack1 You mean mass number, right?

[@likenem]

FIGHTING CANCER WITH EXPLOSIONS! TORGUE APPROVES!

[@zeppie_]

likenem TESTOSTERONE!!!

[@ArchAngelSlayer1]

likenem Yeah, no more radiation.... Lasers are for pussies.

[@SirMoohsAlot]

likenem Made my day!

[@alexandermorin9627]

likenem WE HERE AT THE TORGUE THINK THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!

[@likenem]

Cow17 You and every one who thumbs upped did too . I wasn't sure if the borderlands community crossed over with the Scishow Community.

[@Lttlemoi]

_doctor_: I'm sorry to inform you miss, that you have cancer. _patient_: Oh noes? Is there anything you can do to help me? _doctor_: *_holding a stick of what appears to be dynamite_* No worries miss, we can blast the cancer out of you in no time.

[@josephfox9221]

Lttlemoi I love explosions, perhaps I should go into medcine

[@Tennyson999]

Michael Bay's dream hospital

[@SteevyTable]

Lttlemoi So apparently there really is no problem that cannot be solved with the proper application of explosives.

[@DavidStudiosproduct]

Lttlemoi Hope no cool guys look at them explosions!

[@monkeyneil578]

눈 ͜ಎ눈 filthy weabist Cancer Curing Hospital staring Megan fox Direacted by Michacl Bay coming to a theater near you *"the new cure came in with a bang"*

[@iknowitalljacob2396]

As soon as I saw the thumbnail, I though fullerene: C2 chemistry. Somebody's been doing their revision 😄

[@okaykatieokay]

Too bad the exam was last week. My teacher never really covered this stuff very well.

[@joshf607]

Cambridge a-level chemistry lol

[@TrishTruitt]

This was excellent! I've read about fullerenes for a while but no one broke it all down like this.

[@Zerepzerreitug]

Attacking cancer cells with nano explosions? when did Michael Bay got a title in medicine?

[@jacobpetersen4038]

"I have good news and bad news, which do you want to hear first?" "The good news." "Well, I can't explain the good news before saying the bad news, so here goes. You have a tumor, but it is treatable." "How will you treat it? Chemo? Surgery?" "No. We're going to blow it up."

[@coloraturaElise]

Gilbert and Sullivan quote at 3'29", from their comic opera "Iolanthe", Act 2, song "When all night long" sung by Private Willis. Gilbert was referring to the British Parliament, btw.

[@DeadCreativity]

Winter Soldier Ball: Explosive, partially synthetic, and previously named Bucky.

[@DerPilotMann]

It is really cool to hear about "Bucky." I actually live in Carbondale, IL, attending SIU, and he was from around here (or at least he worked at the university at some point) and I live right around the corner from the "Bucky Dome" which is a house with that geodesic dome pattern. Also, "Fat Patties" has a bucky dome burger... It is delicious, and artery ruining.

[@MitchSummers]

Great video! Oddly enough, I just heard about c60 in the Al Jazeera dark side of sports documentary. C60 was mentioned as being used "off the record" in the military. It seemed he was alluding to it as a supplement and not a "buckybomb" but they didn't elaborate.

[@SESResearchInc]

Good documentary and interesting that they mention C60 as it is not a flag substance in sports.

[@RainaRamsay]

"Researchers call them Buckybombs" because of course they do.

[@daymeinvines1699]

Although I knew a lot about buckyballs. You guys still provide fun facts and more knowledge for me! I love it!

[@TypeVertigo]

Nice video. I had first heard about buckyballs in an old issue of Newsweek around 20 years ago and was curious that it hadn't been talked much about since, being overtaken by carbon fiber and graphene in terms of hype. This is a good reminder. Thanks!

[@daniellbondad6670]

Carbon can be ugly(charcoal) or shiny(diamond).Weak(charcoal) or strong(carbon nanotubes).Nothing against coal.They do give off very useful heat for everyone to share.

[@jasonadler2668]

For the past 10 years this molecule has been my favorite. Crazy properties and awesome name

[@GeterPoldstein]

3:28 Loving the Gilbert and Sullivan quotation. Iolanthe :)

[@buckyohare5501]

Best Scishow Episode yet!

[@TytolisMemes]

Buckyballs? Buckybombs? What next? Buckyballbombs?

[@MsSBVideos]

I thought buckyballs were little magnetic spheres you could stick together and play with and kids could choke on.

[@franchisepitstop3849]

Just Brilliant!! Great Vid!!

[@Romanticoutlaw]

buckyball is hands down the cutest name for something scientific

[@Silent_Python]

So carbon is the hardest thing on earth now? pfft screw diamond rings now we will make carbon rings!

[@personbot2770]

MrGareth66.com Diamonds are made of carbon.

[@Silent_Python]

Person Bot 27 MrGangsterCabbage well there called diamonds and not carbon. So ye I hope you see my point in the joke there...

[@josephfox9221]

Person Bot 27 shut up. dont spoil his dreams

[@MsSqueashy]

LOL OWNED

[@personbot2770]

Joseph Fox How was I spoiling his dreams. I was simply stating a fact, and his point is still perfectly valid so long as you replace the word "carbon" with "buckyball." I was just trying to clear up a misconception.

[@FlyingJetpack1]

My teacher also told me they use the buckyballs for an almost frictionless matirial in very expensive gears or machines with alot of moving parts that are used on space flights like the ISS.

[@Ikeduro]

Great episode as always!

[@diegofloor]

I don't know if I said this already but this is the only popular science thing that I actually learn something. (not because I'm dumb but because I usually know what is being talked about)

[@lemonadeisyum]

Great episode!

[@curtissilveria7225]

I work in a polymers lab at my college and we work on Organic solar cells, (flexible solar panels.) We use PCBM (Phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester) which is a derivative of these buckyballs that is made soluble. We dissolve it in dichlorobenzene normally. It's a decent electron acceptor and can make a thin layer of it within our solar cells.The solar panels are very low performing right now though :( But we continue on FOR SCIENCE!!

[@MotherEarth1998]

Wow, really quite extraordinary, particularly the bit about medical uses

[@Lego9663Studios]

Now I really like this. Really good science. No preconceived notions getting in the way of progress. :)

[@ragnkja]

The discovery of fullerenes even led to the addition of a new _symbol_ for writing chemical equations:@. As you might guess, it means the substance before the @ symbol is _inside_ the one after it, like H2O @ C60

[@jakethompsonyt40]

Nice vid bro, look forward to future videos.

[@WilliamDye-willdye]

R.I.P. Rick Smalley. I got to meet him at a Foresight conference many years ago. He spent a lot time patiently explaining the basics of Quantum Mechanics to a single young student who sat near him to ask a few questions. Imagine getting a free one-on-one tutorial from a Nobel Laureate on chemistry. I didn't agree with some of his ideas about mechanosynthesis, but I was really impressed with his kindness and intelligence. I have to wonder if exposure to carbon nanotubes caused his leukemia.

[@smarteconomy]

William Dye see link between Carbon 60 Hydrated Fullerenes and Cancer Metastasis ocad.academia.edu/WalterDerzko/Papers

[@ashleylala4293]

That member of the British house of lords must have felt pretty stupid when they discovered that C60 nearly doubles the lifespan of rats.

[@Dahxelb]

3:42 .. Can create a substance harder than Diamond you say .. Now that caught my interest. How does it's structure re-arrange? Make a full other episodes on the top hardest/strongest substances/materials, and include this compressed harder-than-diamond buckyball substance please.

[@Grond112358]

FINALLY the Buckyball. Thank you, SciShow.

[@sopheyrac1204]

I had an exam on this last week! If only this had been out then. I only remembered what I learned about them because I imagined Bucky Barnes trapped in a tiny carbon football.

[@playc.holder6432]

Oh my god. The intercellular starwars-esque warfare images conjured up in my head when you said buckybombs is epic. This needs to happen and we need animations!

[@xStrayMongrelx]

Now I must see a bucket of "Buckyball Soup" and see it's fluid dynamics in action. Who is up to the challenge of creating this monstrosity?

[@PopsicleSponge]

But even better the one free electron on each carbon makes 2 separate Pi Bonding systems across the ball. The P Orbitals distort to stretch wider on the outside and smaller on the inside Giving it an Exo and Endo orbital 'Shell'.

[@kenpanderz672]

Bucky Bombs are both hilarious and terrifying.

[@pandojustpando8204]

We call it soccer in Australia too! Over here football usually refers to AFL or sometimes rugby.

[@BandanaDrummer95]

I'm not sure if it was known at the time of this video, but there is another interesting property of fullerenes : they can form compounds with helium. Really all that they do is entrap it, but if I remember correctly, it still changes the chemical properties.

[@iLLadelph267]

came back to here during a material science rabbit hole and I miss that longer SciShow intro

[@noahg.9113]

Buckminister... that is officially the new best name ever XD

[@teamyahshuaorgteamyahshuad3202]

The thing I haven't been able to find is, what did the rats eat during this study? And does that contribute to the longevity without tumors. As the first group had tumors when they died of old age... As one researcher said, we get the same results with the rats on a ketogenic diet, but when the food changed back to a McDonald's type diet, the rat tumor growth spiked overnight, while it was on a 40% decline...? So my question, which I have not found the answer to, is , does anyone know what food they were feeding these rats in the initial study? Also, why isn't anyone else asking that question? With such a study, one needs to look at everything, especially in the light of new studies attempting to replicate these results...

[@fromscratchauntybindy9743]

Buckyball! Finally something sciencey that is fun to say and easy to spell!

[@jamez6398]

Man these men looks really respectable. Gotta love that

[@Kumomyst]

Jacksepticeye: "I LOVE BALLS!"

[@bradladam]

Scishow is actually its own experiment. Over the years, they have researched what places watch scishow (relative to the population (ie. percentage)) thus discovering the scientifically curious parts of the world This video has many comments where they have corrected the American word 'soccer' to 'football'which prove how many Europeans watch scishow (relative to the number of comments, not views)

[@KieranLeCam]

Imagine if one day, some form of life was made with these bucky balls! Incredibly flexible but can dent diamond? Almost sounds like the perfect body! Thank you for this information :)

[@jeantaylor8156]

Very interesting I’ve heard that Elite Shungite contains the C60 fullerene molecule also thank you for the info

[@CaptainJackMorenzo]

Well that's comforting to hear... Buckybombs and medicine in the same sentence. ssssSCIENCE!!

[@jo_elk]

Also interesting: in 1999 quantum physicists from the University of Vienna managed to show wave-particle duality of C60 molecules, meaning the C60 bucky balls behaved like waves and showed interference!

[@HajoBenzin1]

(Question for the next episode): At the beginning I noticed a strange phenomenon - I started the video, looked away and muted the sound. In my head I was trying to follow/mimic the intro music to the exact moment the episode will start. Even if I mimicked it veeery slowly, the intro music was still much longer in the video than in my head. I finished the music/sound much quicker although I was convinced that I slowed it down in my head alot. Why is this so?

[@moomunch5522]

I have never taken notes on a youtube video before, now I have!

[@AzraelsEntertainment]

Goddamn it SciShow, I want to sleep but your content is so fascinating and informative!

[@Telamon8]

Buckyballs are the greatest toy ever!

[@amartyamishra6961]

Always awesome!

[@pollenlight7150]

thank you. The grand design led me here.:)

[@Idarknesslmd]

You guys should check out buckypaper. Its kind of a concept for now, science hasn't quite caught up yet.

[@OrlovKruskayev]

If this came online in april 1st I would not believe it with all of my force. "Buckyballs", "Buckybombs". There is no way.

[@TheBossOfTheWorld123]

Now i love buckyballs even more.

[@sinecurve9999]

C60 solid also becomes a superconductor when doped with alkali atoms such as rubidium or potassium. Superior potassium... From Kazakhstan, of course...

[@lasagnahog7695]

If you had an amount of these buckyballs big enough to handle would it be powder with each grain the size of a C60 molecule?

[@qatharsys]

Umm, carbon does not have 12 protons...

[@zheliu4591]

Qatharsys good one kid ahahah. which planet you from

[@Lewd_Fox]

zhe liu carbon has 6 protons and 6 neutrons making its molecular weight 12

[@robomike276]

zhe liu I think the question is what universe he is from.

[@cyrus9210]

Qatharsys I think he meant carbon 12.

[@abzuck5043]

Yeah

[@TimpBizkit]

I can imagine atomic stickmen kicking one around in a nano world cup stadium.

[@allanburton2301]

I love this show

[@MrScooter46290]

SciShow Request about a episode about Mr. Richard Buckmaster Fuller. and the discovery of the geodesic dome. I would like to know what brought him to think about domes.

[@florianderoose]

What about making thin-film transistors (TFT) with them, used for example in future screens? It seems to be an interesting semiconductor as well!

[@MadsKjerulff]

Patient: So doctor, what are you doing? Doctor: I am just filling your body with explosives. yeah...

[@alexanderlenox4329]

This is the weirdest wonder chemical known to man. Now I want some!

[@benjaminfreedman2091]

Can u guys explain where negative blood line came from, I'm very interested to see what your thoughts about negative blood are, it's origins, what's different about it, and is it special.

[@fishofdopeness]

I was just reading up on buckminsterfullerene earlier today! What an enjoyable coinky-dink.

[@LordAmerican]

Buckybombs ... who knew something that a little dangerous could sound silly?

[@michelletheatom]

Robert Curl: Okay, thanks.

[@Vonliktenstien]

I'm in a loud room so every time you said, "buckyball" I heard "Pokeball." Needless to say, I was pretty excited. "Pokeballs are all around us."

[@dagamerking]

This is awesome!

[@Bugatti1]

I really like the intro music...

[@megarafa1199]

If each atom has 12 protons, then we're not talking about carbon, but about magnesium instead...

[@cyrus9210]

Rafa Martínez-Avial Yeah, he was talking about carbon 12.

[@megarafa1199]

***** Carbon 12 refers to carbon atoms with 12 nucleons, rather than protons...

[@cyrus9210]

Yeah and thats the mistake he made.

[@ghuegel]

Rafa Martínez-Avial Yep, it was an error in the video. C60 would have 360 protons and 360 neutrons... if it was all carbon 12.

[@ragnkja]

***** It's a strange mistake for an organic chemist to make, but maybe the error was in the script, and his mind just went on auto-pilot while recording it.

[@PotatoBearRawr]

So how potent are those buckybombs? I am thinking in terms of potential weaponisation (even if it is so rare that it would be just a thought experiment), so one kilo of that compared to a kilo of TNT? (That is how you measure explosive power, right?)

[@supersmily5SS5]

Buckyballs, a.k.a. nano-explosives! That will be fun when we figure out better way to make it.

[@hussainkhuraibet2220]

PROOF THAT SOCCER/FOOTBALL IS THE BEST SPORT NATURE AND SCIENCE PROVE IT

[@stevenjlovelace]

Of course we've already weaponized it. :(

[@mr.j774]

id like to see an episode on Vantablack. very related to this episode.

[@Dragonduo05]

i heard of study of adding noble gasses to the inside of buckyballs, any fruition of those studies? can we effectively contain Helium now?

[@joshanonline]

Quite interesting . i always wondered why haven't we made ball-shaped atom structures from different materials yet.. so its expensive huh. wonder what other molecule structures we have yet to discover with interesting properties .

[@HugThePolice]

Football!

[@ammarbolden3020]

HugThePolice America.... that is all

[@dohrwardtwyatt]

Are you aware that in America football is a completely different sport?

[@Quazap]

HugThePolice Well, its not the American's fault for calling it that.

[@martinbarba7689]

A user is a person who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account. Ok, but the "football" they play is almost played with the hands and rarely with the feet; off course there are a handball play that is a mixture of basket with football (the real one)and they can´t use that name. The yanks should call their game "rugby with helmets" or "MMA with a ball" and let the real football in peace

[@SilentBudgie]

HugThePolice Americans are wrong about a lot of things, like their system of measurement and their spelling of "colour" and "centre", but at least they got the right name for soccer.

[@sonic2power2]

Wow Buckybombs... awesome name!!!

[@rosepurdy6301]

Does shungite truly contain this allotrope natually?

[@PixelCortex]

That is so cool! microscopic explosives!

[@flatbat13]

Do another video on graphene! We figured out how to mass produce it and man oh man does it have some awesome abilities!!!

[@RubyCheetahCub]

Me reading the title: small spherical magnets that can make really cool things.

[@PillowTalk420]

Trying to imagine a scientist named Kroto makes me think of a comic book super villain archtype.

[@meh4177]

Idea for future video's - why diamonds are so hard (chemically speaking of course) THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW!!! :):):)