GLITTER: AN ETHEREAL SUBSTANCE

GLITTER

In the first paper on glitter, (M.J. Bucknum and R. Hoffmann, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 116, 11456, (1994)), the name for this metallic C allotrope comes from Shakespeare's play entitled "The Merchant of Venice", based upon its supposed metallic lustre. Thus, from the quote, read by the Prince of Morocco to Portia, from the scroll in the eyesocket of the skull contained in the Gold casket we learn in Act II, Scene VII that:

All that glitters is not gold

Often have you heard that told

Many a man his life hath sold

But my outside to behold

Gilded tombs do worms enfold

Had you been as wise as bold

Young in limbs, in judgement old

Your answer had not been enscroll'd

Fate you well, your suit is cold

This is good indeed, and makes for a wonderment and fascination, it seems that no matter how much money you have in the world, you cannot take it with you to the afterworld when you die.................Thus Portia's portrait was not found in the Gold or Silver caskets, but in the base Lead casket.....................The imagery here of Lead to Gold is certainly suggestive of the search for the philosopher's stone by the alchemists active in Shakespeare's era.................This quotation, abovementioned, comes from a scene in the play, "The Merchant of Venice" in which various suitors come to meet the princess-like Portia and compete for her honor in matrimony. The list is narrowed to 3 suitors, the Prince of Morocco, the Prince of Arragon, and a third suitor named Bassanio. Someone devises a test for the 3 suitors, in which they have to choose between 3 caskets, one a Gold casket, one a Silver casket and one a Lead casket to try to uncover a portrait of Portia in one of the caskets and so gain the favor of Portia in matrimony. Bassanio opens the Lead casket and uncovers Portia's portait and triumphs in matrimony with her.

You that choose not by the view

Chance as fair, and choose as true!

Since this fortune falls to you,

Be content and seek no new.

If you be well pleased with this,

And hold your fortune for your bliss,

Turn you where your lady is,

And claim her with a loving kiss.

The Lead-to-Gold imagery, in Act II, Scene VII of the "Merchant of Venice" is thus certainly suggestive of one of the philospher's stone and the everlasting search for the secret to immortality by the alchemists of Shakespeare's day. The Philospher's Stone, it has come to be understood, was supposed to be that substance which could transform a base metal (Lead) into a noble metal (Gold), and this all had some connection with the notion of one attaining a recipe for immortality. In other words, one would find the secret of the Holy Grail if one could transform Lead into Gold........................................And we certainly know that Newton exhaustively tried to do so. With the choice of the name glitter, one is transcending this Lead-to-Gold alchemical imagery of the past, of the search for the philosopher's stone, which is suggestive in the "Merchant of Venice"......................to a more modern interpretation of a virtually ethereal substance, the search for a virtual substance..............................an allotrope of Carbon, in which it is widely known that Carbon, surely among the elements, spells the secret of life.

This ethereal substance that we call glitter possesses incredible properties as has been published, it is harder than diamond on the one hand, the hardest material known to mankind, and with its published 3D resonance structures, it resembles indeed a classical BCS-type superconductor with conduction by pi electron pairs unidirectionally along the c-axis. It seems, thus, that glitter is indeed perhaps the most perfect conductor, and harder than diamond as well.....................................Glitter transcends the transformation of Lead-to-Gold by being a material even more extraordinary than Gold is, and rarer still....................................Like the alchemist's philosopher's stone, and the search for the Holy Grail that have come before it, it is indeed the perfect construction of an ethereal concept, here an allotropic substance of Carbon..............................and as such its synthesis will never be attained. It is simply too remarkable a material on paper, with such properties as perfect conductivity and perfect strength, to ever really exist in reality. This is the secret of the name glitter.............................it is like the sparkle in your eyes, it is ethereal as is the secret of life..........