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LiveScience
LiveScience
Tia Ghose

Science history: Chemists discover buckyballs — the most perfect molecules in existence — Nov. 14, 1985

An animation of a spinning buckyball molecule.
QUICK FACTS

Milestone: 'Buckyballs' discovered and described

Date: Nov. 14, 1985

Where: Rice University, Houston, Texas

Who: Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley and Robert Curl

Over a feverish 10-day period in 1985, scientists conceived of a new molecule of perfect symmetry — and named it after one of the 20th century's most famous inventors and futurists.

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