HT>> The process is likely modeled as a classical oscillator.
 HT>> That is, any time a charged body oscillates, it's going to
 HT>> emit EM radiation.

 PR> Buckyballs were well after I got my Chem degree in '67,

You're one up on me.  I never got one.

 PR> I'd say the electrons can do
 PR> the QM jump between orbitals and radiate, but I'm not sure
 PR> I'd consider that a moving charge.

You have to be careful.  That QM jump thing is not at all valid.  It's
often better to use the semi-classical model of an oscillating electron
cloud.

The QM jump was part of the old quantum theory.  It doesn't really hold any
validity other than that one special case that launched QM: Bohr's model of
the H atom.

 PR> BTW, my PBS station is in pledge and showed the first of the
 PR> Nova string-theory shows last night.  Got into quantum
 PR> mechanics. I didn't like it the first time I saw it, and I
 PR> don't like it now. "Quantum mechanics is so unlike the real
 PR> world of your experience,
 PR> so WIERD, that you can't understand it."  So they dumb it all down
 PR> to make a self-fulfilling propecy, and thus avoid presenting
 PR> any of the marvelous things about QM.

I agree in part.  But, quantum mechanics really IS weird.

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