Robert Curl, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2022)

Robert Floyd Curl Jr. was an American chemist who was Pitzer–Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences and professor of chemistry at Rice University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for the discovery of the nanomaterial buckminsterfullerene, and hence the fullerene class of materials, along with Richard Smalley and Harold Kroto of the University of Sussex.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on proposal of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, which consists of five members elected by the Academy. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10th, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 130 days remain until the end of the year.