THE STONE-WALES MAP FOR C-60

The possible Stone-Wales (pyracylene) rearrangements amongst C-60 full erenes generate a graph in which buckminsterfullerene is linked to 170 9 of the other 1811 fullerene isomers. Only one major bottleneck exist s on this main map; all routes to icosahedral C-60 pass through a sing le isomer of C-2v symmetry. When energies of all isomers computed in t he semi-empirical QCFF/PI model are combined with the map, it is found that stability generally decreases with the number of Stone-Wales ste ps away from the icosahedral isomer and that the 877 most stable isome rs are on the main map. Implications of the map for the pentagon and f ullerene road models of C-60 formation are discussed.