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Harry Kroto shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for discovering fullerenes — soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecules, later nicknamed buckyballs, that opened a new branch of chemistry and materials science. Born Harold Krotoschiner, he spent roughly forty years at the University of Sussex before finishing his career at Florida State University, and was an outspoken critic of religious faith who also devoted himself to promoting science education among children.