Tag Archives: Robert Curl

Artificial intelligence (AI) designs “Giants of Nanotech” non-fungible tokens (NFTs)

Leave a reply

Nanowerk, an agency which provides nanotechnology information and more, has commissioned a series of AI-designed non-fungible tokens representing two of the ‘Giants of Nanotechnology’, Richard Feynman and Sir Harold Kroto.

It’s a fundraising effort as noted here in an April 10, 2022 Nanowerk Spotlight article by website owner, Michael Berger,

We’ve spent a lot of time recently researching and writing the articles for our Smartworlder section here on Nanowerk – about cryptocurrencies, explaining blockchain, and many other aspects of smart technologies – for instance non-fungible tokens (NFTs). So, we thought: Why not go all the way and try this out ourselves?

As many organizations continue to push the boundaries as to what is possible within the web3 ecosystem, producing our first-ever collection of nanotechnology-themed digital art on the blockchain seemed like a natural extension for our brand and we hope that these NFT collectibles will be cherished by our reader community.

To start with, we created two inaugural Nanowerk NFT collections in a series we are calling Giants of Nanotech in order to honor the great minds of science in this field.

The digital artwork has been created using the artificial intelligence (AI) image creation algorithm Neural Style Transfer. This technique takes two images – a content image and a style reference image (such as an artwork by a famous painter) – and blends them together so the output image looks like the content image, but ‘painted’ in the style of the reference image.

For example, here is a video clip that shows how the AI transforms the Feynman content image into a painting inspired by Victor Nunnally’s Journey Man:

If you want to jump right into it, here are the Harry Kroto collection and the Richard Feynman collection on the OpenSea marketplace.

…

Have fun with our NFTs and please remember, your purchase helps fund Nanowerk and we are very grateful to you!

Also note: NFTs are an extremely volatile market. This article is not financial advice. Invest in the crypto and NFT market at your own risk. Only invest if you fully understand the potential risks.

I have a couple of comments. First, there’s Feynman’s status as a ‘Giant of Nanotechnology’. He is credited in the US as providing a foundational text (a 1959 lecture titled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”) for the field of nanotechnology. There has been some controversy over the lecture’s influence some of which has been covered in the Wikipedia entry titled, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.”

Second, Sir Harold Kroto won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with two colleagues (all three were at Rice University in Texas), for the discovery of the buckminsterfullerene. Here’s more about that from the Richard E. Smalley, Robert F. Curl, and Harold W. Kroto essay on the Science History Institute website,

In 1996 three scientists, two American and one British, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of buckminsterfullerene (the “buckyball”) and other fullerenes. These “carbon cages” resembling soccer balls opened up a whole new field of chemical study with practical applications in materials science, electronics, and nanotechnology that researchers are only beginning to uncover.

With their discovery of buckminsterfullerene in 1985, Richard E. Smalley (1943–2005), Robert F. Curl (b. 1933), and Harold W. Kroto (1939–2016) furthered progress to the long-held objective of molecular-scale electronics and other nanotechnologies. …

Finally, good luck to Nanowerk and Michael Berger.

Interstellar fullerenes

Leave a reply

This work from Russia on fullerenes (also known as buckministerfullerenes, C60, and/or buckyballs) is quite interesting and dates back more than a year. I’m not sure why the work is being publicized now but nanotechnology and interstellar space is not covered here often enough so, here goes, (from a January 29, 2018 Kazan Federal University press release (also on EurekAlert), Note: Links have been removed,

Currently, materials based on spherical carbon nanostructures can cost up to USD 150 million per 1 gram.

Fullerenes were first discovered by Harry Kroto in the 1970s, a feat for which he and his colleagues Robert Curl and Richard Smalley received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Recently, fullerenes have been found in winds emitted by red giants and in interstellar medium.

Fullerenes are very potent antioxidants and are used in antiviral medications. In particular, fullerenes with anti-HIV properties have also been discovered. Apart from that, they are also used as semiconductors and even high temperature superconductors (if decorated with alkali metal atoms). Their sphere of use is constantly growing, and research is ongoing to find ways of mass production. So far, they are produced in near-gram quantities. One of the more popular methods is the graphite electrode arc process. It is hypothesized that in deep vacuum conditions with low density fullerenes can by synthesized in other yet unknown ways.

A group of astronomers is currently engaged in studies of fullerenes in interstellar medium. Among them are KFU alumni Gazinur Galazutdinov (Catholic University of the North, Chile) and Gennady Valyavin (Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and current KFU employee, Associate Professor at the Department of Astronomy and Space Geodesy Vladislav Shimansky. Together, they contributed to a recent paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The nearest interstellar clouds with confirmed fullerene presence are about 1,000 light years away from Earth. Electromagnetic spectra of 19 distant stars were provided by the VLT telescope in Chile, one of the largest in the world. The authors found fullerenes which left traces – absorption lines in certain frequencies.

Dr. Shimansky comments, “We know for sure which frequencies have lines of fullerenes, but the main difficulty is to separate the interstellar medium spectrum from the star spectrum. That’s why we can obtain fullerene lines by ‘subtracting’ star spectra from the existing spectrum, and that’s a complicated process. Firstly, we discovered some parameters of stars, and some of these stars are unique objects.”

“We compare fullerene-bearing clouds with non-fullerene clouds to find out which environmental parameters capacitate the formation of such molecules. In our research, we found that in some clouds the molecules are in an excited state, and in some they are not. This leads us to believe that the ways of their formation are different.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

C60+ – looking for the bucky-ball in interstellar space by G. A. Galazutdinov, V. V. Shimansky, A. Bondar, G. Valyavin, J. Krełowski. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 465, Issue 4, 11 March 2017, Pages 3956–3964, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw2948 Published: 22 December 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

h/t January 29, 2018 news item on Nanowerk

Buckypaper and nanocrystalline cellulose; two different paths to the same ends?

Leave a reply

Buckypaper interests me largely because of its name (along with Buckyballs and Buckytubes [usually called carbon nanotubes]). I believe the names are derived from Buckminsterfullerenes a form of carbon engineered (it can be found in nature) in the labs at Rice University. From the Wikipedia essay on Buckminsterfullerenes,

Buckminsterfullerene is a spherical fullerene molecule with the formula C60. It was first prepared in 1985 by Harold Kroto, James Heath, Sean O’Brien, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley at Rice University.  Kroto, Curl, and Smalley were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their roles in the discovery of buckminsterfullerene and the related class of molecules, the fullerenes. The name is an homage to Richard Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes it resembles. Buckminsterfullerene was the first fullerene molecule discovered and it is also the most common in terms of natural occurrence, as it can be found in small quantities in soot.

Buckypaper is a main focus at the High Performance Materials Institute at the Florida State University, which has just *released a promotional video (according to the Oct. 3, 2011 news item on Nanowerk). Here’s the video,

It reminds me a little of the video for Nokia’s Morph concept, which was released a few years back. I haven’t heard any substantive news about that project although there are the occasional updates. For example, the Morph was originally described it as a phone and then they changed it to the Morph concept. I’d love to see a prototype one of these days. (There’s more about the Morph and its incarnations in my Sept. 29, 2010 posting.)

The descriptions for applications using Buckypaper reminded me of nanocrystalline cellulose as I’ve seen some of the same claims made for that substance. I’m hoping to hear about the new plant in Windsor, Québec which is supposed to be opening this fall. From the ArboraNano new projects page,

Currently, Canada has an 18- to 24-month global lead in the commercial production of NCC as a 1 ton/day demonstration plant located in Windsor, Quebec enters the final phases of construction. Startup is planned for Fall 2011.

It’s good to see all these different research efforts and to reflect on the innovation being demonstrated.

* Nov. 27, 2013: changed ‘release’ to ‘released’.

Nanoscience public relations at Rice University

1 Reply

There’s an opportunity to interact with Nobel prize winner in Chemistry Sir Harry Kroto via the Nobel Prize’s YouTube channel and its Facebook page. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Harry Kroto, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996, is the latest to take part in the “Ask a Nobel Laureate” series on YouTube and Facebook. “Ask a Nobel Laureate” gives online viewers worldwide the unique opportunity to put their questions directly to a Nobel Laureate and see the responses.

Harry Kroto received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for the discovery of C60, a remarkable molecule composed of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a soccer-ball-like pattern. The configuration reminded Kroto of the futuristic geodesic domes designed by Richard Buckminster Fuller, and consequently C60 was given the name “buckminsterfullerine”, otherwise known by its more popular name of “buckyballs”.

You have until Sept. 4, 2010 to submit your questions via the Nobel Prize YouTube channel (where you will find a 3 minute video introduction to Sir Harry Kroto) or the Nobel Prize FaceBook page.

Video or text questions will be accepted (though video questions are preferred), and you can visit the channels to see questions that have already been posted and vote for your favourite ones. The deadline for submitting questions is 4 September 2010. Harry Kroto will then answer a selection of questions, and his answers will be broadcast on [the Nobel Prize] YouTube channel.

You can find out more about Sir Harry Kroto’s Nobel Prize here.

This item caught my attention since I’ve been noticing an increase in the number of news items about Rice University and/or the folks associated with the discovery of buckyballs. For example, Nanowerk has another news item about Rice University’s new state-of-the-art nanotechnology overview course (Continuing Studies) being launched in concert with Rice’s Year of the Nano 25th anniversary celebration of the discovery of the buckyball. From the news item,

In conjunction with Rice’s Year of Nano celebration of the 25th anniversary of the buckminsterfullerene molecule discovery – the buckyball – the Glasscock School is offering a course to the public featuring lectures by Rice’s top nano scientists. The course will cover applications of nanotechnology and the underlying scientific principles that relate to medicine, electronics, materials and energy. Participants will explore the environmental, health and safety aspects of nanotechnology, how Rice is leading the way in understanding and assessing the risks and how applications are brought to market and create jobs.

First among the lecturers is one of the buckyball’s discoverers, Robert Curl, Rice’s University Professor Emeritus and Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Natural Sciences, who shared the Nobel Prize with the late Richard Smalley of Rice and Harold Kroto, then of the University of Sussex and now at Florida State University. [emphasis mine]

Curl will discuss the team’s work and subsequent impact of the buckyball, a 60-atom carbon molecule shaped like a soccer ball and one of the hardest substances in the universe. Wade Adams, director of Rice University’s Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, co-sponsor of the course, will join Curl for the presentation.

So the “Ask a Nobel Laureate” series focus on Sir Harry Kroto comes at an interesting time, non?

Really good public relations (pr) practice can be quite subtle and difficult if not impossible to detect unless you are in ‘the know’. So this Nobel YouTube/FaceBook interaction with Sir Harry K. may be happy coincidence or part of a pr campaign.

Stuart Ewen wrote a book titled, PR! A Social History of Spin, where he discusses a lengthy interview he had with Edward Bernays one of the pioneers in US public relations. Before I tell the story it’s best to know a little more about Bernays. From PR Watch.org (book review by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton),

Today, few people outside the public relations profession recognize the name of Edward L. Bernays. As the year 2000 approaches, however, his name deserves to figure on historians’ lists of the most influential figures of the 20th century.

It is impossible to fundamentally grasp the social, political, economic and cultural developments of the past 100 years without some understanding of Bernays and his professional heirs in the public relations industry. PR is a 20th century phenomenon, and Bernays–widely eulogized as the “father of public relations” at the time of his death in 1995–played a major role in defining the industry’s philosophy and methods.

Eddie Bernays himself desperately craved fame and a place in history. During his lifetime he worked and schemed to be remembered as the founder of his profession and sometimes drew ridicule from his industry colleagues for his incessant self-promotions. These schemes notwithstanding, Bernays richly deserves the title that Boston Globe reporter Larry Tye has given him in his engagingly written new book, The Father of Spin.

…

Bernays’ life was amazing in many ways. He had a role in many of the seminal intellectual and commercial events of this century. “The techniques he developed fast became staples of political campaigns and of image-making in general,” Tye notes. “That is why it is essential to understand Edward L. Bernays if we are to understand what Hill and Knowlton did in Iraq–not to mention how Richard Nixon was able to dig his way out of his post-Watergate depths and remake himself into an elder statesman worthy of a lavish state funeral, how Richard Morris repositioned President Bill Clinton as an ideological centrist in order to get him reelected, and how most other modern-day miracles of public relations are conceived and carried out.”

Ewen’s book published in 1996 likely features one of Bernays’ last interviews and fascinating insight into how pr can work. Partway through the interview Ewen asks Bernays for a practical example of how he practices pr and Bernays uses Ewen’s forthcoming book as the example. From the website where Dr. Ewen sells his book and offers chapter 1 as a reading sample,

If you said to me, ‘I would like more readers of this book’ [tapping the cover] …I would immediately get in touch with the largest American consumer association. And I would say to the head of the consumers association, ‘There are undoubtedly…I can’t tell you the exact percentage, but X percentage of your members who are very definitely interested in the images that come from a finance capitalist society, and who I think would enjoy hearing about that. Why don’t you devote one of your twelve meetings a year to consumer images, the name of a new book, and I think it may be possible for me to get the author to talk to the New York meeting and you then make an arrangement with American Tel and Tel and have a video tape made of him beforehand and in thirty of the largest cities of the United States that have the American Consumer League, you listen to an in-depth concept of consumers and images….’

Then Bernays turned to me and, with an abracadabra tone in his voice, he summarized the imaginable result of his hypothetical phone-call to the head of the country’s largest consumer association:

Every one of the consumer groups has contacts with the local paper, and in some cases the AP may pick it up, or Reuters, and you become an international star!

…

Then, about three months after the interview-the above incident having faded from my immediate memory-I received a most surprising telephone call. It was from Steven Brobeck, president of the Consumer Federation of America, one of the nation’s largest and most influential consumer organizations. Mr. Brobeck wanted to know if I would be willing to serve as a keynote speaker at the upcoming Consumer Congress in Washington, DC, a convention that would bring together more than a thousand members of consumer organizations from around the country. He wanted me to speak about American consumer culture and the ways that seductive commercial images are routinely employed to promote waste and disposability. C-Span, I was informed, would be taping my keynote, and would then cablecast it across the country.

I still do not know whether Bernays’ hand was behind this invitation, or whether the phone call was merely a result of sly coincidence. When I inquired as to the origin of the invitation, nowhere was there any clear-cut, or even circumstantial, evidence of Bernays’ intervention.

But then I recalled another point in our lengthy conversation, when Bernays sermonized on the invisibility with which public relations experts must, ideally, perform their handiwork. [emphasis mine]

Props to the folks at Rice if they are practicing some invisible pr.

I’ve written about Rice and their Year of the Nano before, May 13, 2010 and August 3, 2010.

Year of Nano at Rice University

2 Replies

I mentioned the Year of Nano 25th anniversary celebration of the buckminsterfullerene (also known as a C60 fullerene or bucky ball) at Rice University in a Feb. 8, 2010 posting (it’s towards the bottom) and wasn’t really expecting to hear more about it until the technical symposium in October 2010. Yesterday, the folks at Rice University sent out a news release that manages to herald both the Year of Nano and the 50th anniversary of the laser. From the news release (titled, From beams to bucky balls),

Twenty-five years after the laser beam came to be, a historic meeting took place at Rice University that led to the discovery of the buckminsterfullerene, the carbon 60 molecule for which two Rice scientists won the Nobel Prize.

Now that the buckyball is celebrating its own 25th anniversary, it’s worth noting that one wouldn’t have happened without the other.

During the Year of Nano, Rice will honor Nobel laureates Robert Curl and the late Richard Smalley, their research colleague and co-laureate, Sir Harold Kroto, then of the University of Sussex, and former graduate students James Heath and Sean O’Brien with a series of events culminating in an Oct. 11-13 symposium at Rice on nanotechnology’s past, present and future.

But Curl happily throws a share of the credit to another Rice professor, Frank Tittel, a laser pioneer whose work continues to break new ground in chemical sensing.

Fifty years ago this Sunday, on May 16, 1960, Hughes Research scientist Theodore Maiman fired off the first laser beam from a small ruby rod, a camera flashlamp and a power supply.

Not long after the news was reported in the New York Times, Tittel, now Rice’s J.S. Abercrombie Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, was asked by his new bosses at General Electric to recreate Maiman’s device. “That used brute force,” Tittel said of his first laser, later donated to the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. “Now we’re more sophisticated.”

Tittel joined Rice in 1967 and quickly built the first tunable laser in Texas, used in spectroscopy and sensing devices. He also formed collaborations with other professors, including Curl, who is now Rice’s University Professor Emeritus and Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Natural Sciences.

The laser attracted a lot of interest and was used to investigate a number of phenomena including Kroto’s chief interest in 1985, the “abundance of carbon molecules in interstellar clouds,”

…  The experiments in late 1985 showed an abundance of carbon 60, which set the scientists racing to figure out what such a molecule would look like. “We had this problem that this (carbon cluster) was a little strong, and it looked like there was something there,” Curl said, noting that the team pursued the interstellar question no further. “The discovery of the fullerenes drew all our attention.”

Smalley was the first to find the solution by assembling a paper model of hexagons and pentagons that turned out to be identical to a soccer ball. (In a webcast available here, Curl described how the team came up with the key to the solution over enchiladas at a Houston diner.)

The webcast with Curl is titled, How Astrophysical Interests Accidentally Led to Advances in Carbon Chemistry. I think what’s so fascinating is that Richard Smalley wasn’t that interested in Kroto’s question but it was that question that led to their great discovery. This story reminded me of a comment from Dr. J. Storrs Hall that I quoted in one of my recent posts (scroll down to find the passage), “As Dr. Hall aptly noted it’s not dispassionate calculations but ‘serendipity: the way science always works’.”