William Alfred Fowler

Template:Short description Template:Other people Template:Distinguish Template:Infobox scientist William Alfred Fowler (August 9, 1911 Template:Ndash March 14, 1995) was an American nuclear physicist, later astrophysicist, who, with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is known for his theoretical and experimental research into nuclear reactions within stars and the energy elements produced in the process<ref name=":0">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> and was one of the authors of the influential [[B2FH paper|BTemplate:SupFH paper]].

Early life

On 9 August 1911, Fowler was born in Pittsburgh. Fowler's parents were John MacLeod Fowler and Jennie Summers Watson. Fowler was the eldest of his siblings, Arthur and Nelda.<ref name=":0" />

The family moved to Lima, Ohio, a steam railroad town, when Fowler was two years old. Growing up near the Pennsylvania Railroad yard influenced Fowler's interest in locomotives. In 1973, he travelled to the Soviet Union just to observe the steam engine that powered the Trans-Siberian Railway plying the nearly Template:Convert route that connects Khabarovsk and Moscow.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Education

In 1933, Fowler graduated from the Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. In 1936, Fowler received a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.<ref name="columbia_fowler">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Career

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Fowler's Los Alamos badge

In 1936, Fowler became a research fellow at Caltech. He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1938.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1939, Fowler became an assistant professor at Caltech.<ref name="columbia_fowler" />

Although an experimental nuclear physicist, Fowler's most famous paper was his collaboration with Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, "Synthesis of the Elements in Stars" Significantly, Margaret Burbidge was first author, her husband Geoffrey Burbidge second, Fowler third, and Cambridge cosmologist Fred Hoyle fourth. That 1957 paper in Reviews of Modern Physics<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> categorized most nuclear processes for origin of all but the lightest chemical elements in stars. It is widely known as the [[B2FH paper|BTemplate:SupFH paper]]. Though the theory of Stellar Nucleosynthesis established in the paper was later cited by the Nobel Committee as the reason for Fowler's 1983 Nobel in Physics, neither any of the Burbidges nor Hoyle shared in the award.

In 1942, Fowler became an associate professor at Caltech. In 1946, Fowler became a Professor at Caltech.<ref name="columbia_fowler" /> Fowler, along with Lee A. DuBridge, Max Mason, Linus Pauling, and Bruce H. Sage, was awarded the Medal for Merit in 1948 by President Harry S. Truman.<ref name="Pauling">Template:Cite web</ref>

Fowler succeeded Charles Lauritsen as director of the W. K. Kellogg Radiation Laboratory at Caltech, and was himself later succeeded by Steven E. Koonin. Fowler was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Gerald Ford.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Fowler was Guggenheim Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge in 1962–63. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1962,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> won the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1963, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> won the Vetlesen Prize in 1973, the Eddington Medal in 1978, the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1979, and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 (shared with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar) for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe .<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Fowler's doctoral students at Caltech included Donald D. Clayton.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

A lifelong fan of steam locomotives, Fowler owned several working models of various sizes.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Fowler's first wife was Adriane Fay (née Olmsted) Fowler. They had two daughters, Mary Emily and Martha.<ref name="sunjournal_fowlerwife">Template:Cite web</ref>

In December 1989, Fowler married Mary Dutcher, an artist, in Pasadena, California.<ref name="sunjournal_fowlerwife" /> On 11 March 1995, Fowler died from kidney failure in Pasadena, California. He was 83.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Publications

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Obituaries

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External links

• Oral history interview transcript with William Fowler on 8 June 1972, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives - Session I
• Oral history interview transcript with William Fowler on 9 June 1972, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives - Session II
• Oral history interview transcript with William Fowler on 5 February 1973, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives - Session III
• Oral history interview transcript with William Fowler on 6 February 1973, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives - Session IV
• Oral history interview transcript with William Fowler on 30 May 1974, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives - Session V
• 1983 Audio Interview with William Fowler by Martin Sherwin Voices of the Manhattan Project
• W.A. Fowler: Radioactive elements of a low atomic number, Ph.D. dissertation
• Template:Nobelprize including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1983 Experimental and Theoretical Nuclear Astrophysics; the Quest for the Origin of the Elements
• Guide to the Papers of William A. Fowler, 1917-1994
• Caughlan and Fowler 1988: THERMONUCLEAR REACTION RATES, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Interview with William A. Fowler Template:Webarchive, Caltech Archives Oral Histories Online