Platonic but not quite

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If you've ever felt you've been followed by some colours, numbers, names, phrases, you know exactly what I mean. These days, I've been under the constant impression that Plato is after me. Yes, Plato (which, surprisingly, is not my guinea pig). How have I reached this outrageous conclusion? Well, my best friend recommended me a book called The Plato Papers, by Peter Ackroyd ( do read it, it's magnificently unexpected). So right now, it's stalking me from my night stand, begging for a bit of my time. And yesterday, my frantic web browsing led me to buckminsterfullerene (for friends, bucky). And what do you know, it's somehow connected to Plato ( and no, the scientist that discovered it was not named Buckminster). The shape of bucky (for scientists, C60 and also a hollow sphere composed of carbon atoms) is that of a geodesic dome (resembling the structures built by Richard Buckminster Fuller). Although some of you might expect a geographical globe with a daisy on top, it is a structure based on what are usually called the Platonic solids (don't worry, I completely ignored their existence until now as well). The fancifully named bodies above are actually regular polyhedra (amongst them, the cube and other well-known acquaintances).
As the world is the small, viruses are also linked to Plato (I'm sure Plato wouldn't have liked that): the shape of some viruses resembles that of some Platonic bodies. But about viruses, and how they make their beautiful envelopes, in a future post.

Platonic but not quite