A new form, or allotrope, of the element carbon was discovered in the 1980s, and we hear of the story, centering on three chemistry professors: Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl. But they couldn't definitively show the molecular structure of their discovery, though they believed strongly, with circumstantial evidence, that it was soccerball-shaped. A few years later, Wolfgang Krätschmer and American Donald Huffman learned how to make significant quantities of this molecule, and showed that the trio were right.Support the show Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at steve@historyofchem.com Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook