VIRUS shells, atomic nuclei and cage-like carbon molecules may all be expressions of the same simple geometric principle. The finding might help explain why these structures choose the shapes they do.
Viruses and large carbon molecules generally adopt highly symmetric shapes, such as an icosahedron or the football shape of 60-carbon buckyballs. Similar shapes also crop up in a description of atomic nuclei known as the skyrmion model.
If viruses and atoms take on these shapes, it seems intuitive that they must in some sense be the most efficient ones available, and require the least energy. But previous attempts to…
