Posted By: bbursten @ 07/02/2008 3:01:08 PM

Comment: This wonderful article perpetuates a surprisingly common misperception about the roots of the ongoing scientific revolution in nanotechnology. The revolution began with discovery of the soccerball-shaped carbon C60 molecule named ???buckminsterfullerene??? for resemblance to Fuller???s geodesic domes. Writer Cathleen McGuigan says that physicists discovered C60. That is incorrect???in reality, chemists discovered this molecule. Harold W. Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert F. Curl shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery. Although physicists and many other scientific disciplines are helping to push back nanotechnology???s horizons, chemists play the central role in nanoscience R&D today. As president of the American Chemical Society, whose 160,000 members make up the world???s largest scientific society, I know that oversights of this kind are all-too-common. Chemistry???s role is often overlooked, taken for granted, or invisible, while physicists get credit for pioneering nanotechnology, physicians for developing lifesaving new drugs, and biologists for the genetics revolution. I encourage readers to visit the American Chemical Society???s web site (www.acs.org <http://www.acs.org/> ) for a glimpse of the many ways in which chemistry makes everyday life longer, healthier, and more pleasant for billions of people.

Bruce E. Bursten, Ph.D.
President, American Chemical Society
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville