For just 19p, stamp fans can enjoy a piece of science history.

Next week, the Royal Mail will release a set of stamps to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize.

The 19p second-class stamp will feature a heat sensitive image of the buckminsterfullerene C60 molecule, a ballshaped form of the element carbon, discovered by Sussex scientist Professor Sir Harry Kroto in 1985 and known as the "buckyball".

The stamp has been designed to change its image when warmed up by the press of a finger.

The background vanishes and an ion can be seen trapped inside the diagram of the molecule.

Sir Harry said: "The molecule looks like a soccer ball with 12 pentagons linked at each corner by 60 atoms to make the C60 form.

"It is a very very small thing. If it were really the size of a soccer ball then a soccer ball would have to be the size of the earth to be on the same scale.

"Fullerenes resemble a cage and are unusual in that they can trap atoms and molecules inside.

The stamp has shown this well and it is the most striking one of the whole set.

"Children are going to love it, they will be sticking their mucky fingers all over it."

Sir Harry and his team won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their research and the discovery ignited the scientific community.

Sir Harry said: "The molecule has become a symbol of chemistry in the 21st Century and led to many new fields of research.

"At the time of the discovery, we were trying to reproduce the conditions seen when a star blows up and we found this molecule as well.

"It was a big surprise when it formed spontaneously.

People have known about carbon for thousands of years because they have seen soot and diamonds.

"The amazing thing is we only just discovered this form and we are still only beginning to understand its potential.

One brand of research looks into its use in nanotechnology.

"We can make tubes using microscopic quantities which are a hundred times stronger than steel, one-sixth the weight and can conduct perfectly."

This week, Sir Harry is visiting Mexico and Washington to give workshops about his famous discovery.

The talks are aimed at eight to nine-year-old children. He plans to take plenty of the new stamps to give out to his young audiences.

The stamps will be officially released next Tuesday. The Royal Mail web site has previews of the new collection online from today.

The set features a hologram on the 65p Physics stamp, a picture of a book on the 45p Literature stamp, a scratch-and-sniff cross motif on the 40p Physiology and Medicine stamp, an embossed dove for Peace on the European stamp and a picture of the world for Economic Sciences on first-class.

www.sussex.ac.uk
www.nobel.se
www.royalmail.com/stamps/