Only a spherical molecule, they reasoned, could produce this stability. Kroto and his colleagues then discovered that the combination of hexagons and pentagons also formed the basis of a geodesic dome designed by the architect and engineer, R. Buckminster Fuller, for the 1967 Montreal World Exhibition. Chemists write it as C 60 . In 1996 Curl, Kroto and Smalley were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery. The soccerball effect You could go to Montreal to get an idea of what a buckyball looks like.
Buckyballs have more in common with soccerballs than just their looks.
If they are squeezed and then released they spring back to their original shape. And they bounce if they are hurled against a hard surface such as steel. Other shapes The C 60 buckyball is the most famous of the fullerenes but by no means the only one. Buckyballs in bulk Curl, Kroto and Smalley were the first to make and identify buckyballs in the laboratory but they were only able to produce tiny quantities. The race was on to manufacture buckyballs in large enough quantities for detailed investigation of their properties and potential.