Agreed—consider C60. Would anyone in 1980 have believed that there was an unrecognized allotrope of carbon, stable at room temperature and pressure? To phrase it another way: The whole field of organic chemistry had been active for about a century at that point, and had not noticed another structure for their core element in all that time.
I happen to work with someone who was working on his PhD thesis at MIT and found this gigantic peak in his mass spec where C-60 was, but didn’t pursue it because he didn’t have time.
Agreed—consider C60. Would anyone in 1980 have believed that there was an unrecognized allotrope of carbon, stable at room temperature and pressure? To phrase it another way: The whole field of organic chemistry had been active for about a century at that point, and had not noticed another structure for their core element in all that time.
Yes, in 1966 and 1970.
I happen to work with someone who was working on his PhD thesis at MIT and found this gigantic peak in his mass spec where C-60 was, but didn’t pursue it because he didn’t have time.