The First Predictions in the Buckminsterfullerene Crystal Ball

In 1990, almost exactly five years after it was discovered serendipitously during a series of graphite laser vaporization experiments, designed to simulate the chemistry in a red giant carbon star, C60 Buckminsterfullerene has been isolated in macroscopic amounts. This breakthrough has triggered an explosion of research and the molecule has already exhibited a wide range of novel phenomena which promise exciting applications. In addition to the intense experimental interest in its physicochemical properties, C60 has been particularly fascinating to theoreticians, indeed in 1970 its likely stability was predicted some fifteen years before its discovery. Some of the early theoretical contributions to the fullerene story are surveyed below.