Spacedaily is reporting that a multinational team with several members from the Georgia Institute of Technology has discovered how carbon nanotubes form.
It turns out that nanotubes are carbon *crystals* that form within supercooled *liquid* carbon drops. The process is similar to experiments that many children do when growing rock candy or crystals from other easily manipulated compounds (copper sulfate, etc.). The only problem is that one has to work at temperatures of 5000 deg. C in order to get the liquid carbon drops…
