BREAKING BONDS

This three-part sculpture rests in a central courtyard among three chemistry buildings dedicated to materials science, physical chemistry, and organic chemistry. It incorporates the forms of carbon molecules characteristic to each field. Most prominent is a large “soccer ball” representing the geometry of a man-made carbon atom, called the buckminsterfullerene or bucky ball. Two shapes have broken free and left a rupture in the ball. One is a single hexagon, reminiscent of a graphite platelet; the other suggests an organic molecule.