Archimedes steps in again.  The MacTutor tells us that
 
“Archimedes considered his most significant accomplishments were those concerning a cylinder circumscribing a sphere, and he asked for a representation of this together with his result on the ratio of the two, to be inscribed on his tomb.”
 
And one year after it was told us how to produce carbon spheres in relative abundance (at least, enough to buy a decent quantity from your laboratory chemical supplier), along comes Sumio Iijima telling us how to make cylinders.
 
Comparing athletes across generations is always difficult - in football, for example, players are bigger and stronger but before the hashmark changes of the early 1970s, when the field truly had a strong and weak side, a running back like Gale Sayers could make opposing defenses look silly despite an ability to break through a nose tackle.