William Alfred Fowler

For other people named William Fowler, see William Fowler (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Alfred Fowler.

Willy Fowler
Born	(1911-08-09)August 9, 1911 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died	March 14, 1995(1995-03-14) (aged 83) Pasadena, California
Alma mater	Caltech (PhD)
Awards	Barnard Medal for Meritorious Service to Science (1965) Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics (1970) Vetlesen Prize (1973) National Medal of Science (1974) Eddington Medal (1978) Nobel Prize in Physics (1983)
Scientific career
Doctoral advisor	Charles Christian Lauritsen
Doctoral students	J. Richard Bond, Donald Clayton, F. Curtis Michel

William Alfred "Willy" Fowler (August 9, 1911 – March 14, 1995) was an American nuclear physicist, later astrophysicist, who, with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Biography

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Fowler moved with his family to Lima, Ohio, a steam railroad town, at the age of two. He graduated from the Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and received a Ph.D. in nuclear physics at the California Institute of Technology. Although an experimental nuclear physicist, Fowler's most famous paper was "Synthesis of the Elements in Stars", coauthored with Cambridge cosmologist Fred Hoyle and in collaboration with two young Cambridge astronomers, E. Margaret Burbidge and Geoffrey Burbidge. That 1957 paper in Reviews of Modern Physics categorized most nuclear processes for origin of all but the lightest chemical elements in stars. It is widely known as the B²FH paper.

Fowler succeeded Charles Lauritsen as director of the 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.

Fowler won the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1963, 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 for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe (shared with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar).

Fowler was the doctoral advisor at Caltech for Donald D. Clayton, who became the leader of the next generation of nuclear astrophysics and who in 2000 was elected Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A lifelong fan of steam locomotives, Fowler owned several working models of various sizes, one pictured here. He died in Pasadena, California.

Publications

• Fowler, W.A.; Lauritsen, C.C; Lauritsen, T. (1948). "Gamma radiation from light nuclei under proton bombardment". Physical Review. 73: 181. Bibcode:1948PhRv...73..181F. doi:10.1103/physrev.73.181.2.
• Cook, C.W.; Fowler, W.A.; Lauritsen, C.C.; Lauritsen, T. (1957). "B12, C12 and Red Giants". Physical Review. 107: 508. Bibcode:1957PhRv..107..508C. doi:10.1103/physrev.107.508.
• Clayton, Donald D.; Fowler, W.A..; Hull, T.E.; Zimmerman, B.A. (1961). "Neutron capture chains in heavy element synthesis". Annals of Physics. 12: 331. Bibcode:1961AnPhy..12..331C. doi:10.1016/0003-4916(61)90067-7.
• Burbidge, E. M.; Burbidge, G. R.; Fowler, W. A.; Hoyle, F. (1957). "Synthesis of the Elements in Stars". Reviews of Modern Physics. 29 (4): 547–650. Bibcode:1957RvMP...29..547B. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.29.547.
• Fowler, W. A. (1958). "Temperature and Density Conditions for Nucleogenesis by Fusion Processes in Stars". W. K. Kellogg Radiation Laboratory. OSTI 4308210.
• Seeger, P. A.; Fowler, W. A.; Clayton, Donald D. (1965). "Nucleosynthesis of heavy elements by neutron capture". Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 11: 121. Bibcode:1965ApJS...11..121S. doi:10.1086/190111.
• Bodansky, D.; Clayton, Donald D.; Fowler, W.A. (1968). "Nucleosynthesis during silicon burning". Physical Review Letters. 20: 161. Bibcode:1968PhRvL..20..161B. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.20.161.
• Holmes, J.A.; Woosley, S.E.; Fowler, W.A.; Zimmerman, B.A. (1976). "Tables of thermonuclear-reaction-rate for neutron-induced reactions on heavy nuclei". Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables. 18: 305. Bibcode:1976ADNDT..18..305H. doi:10.1016/0092-640x(76)90011-5.

• Caughlan, G.R.; Fowler, W.A.; Zimmerman, B.A. (1975). "Thermonuclear reaction rates, II". Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 13: 69. Bibcode:1975ARA&A..13...69F. doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.13.090175.000441.

Obituaries

• Woosley, Stanford E. (1995). "Obituary: William A. Fowler, 1911-1995". Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society. 27: 1475. Bibcode:1995BAAS...27.1475W.
• Dicke, W. (16 March 1995). "William A. Fowler, 83, Astrophysicist, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-12-06.
• Clayton, Donald D. (1996). "William Alfred Fowler (1911-1995)". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 108: 1. Bibcode:1996PASP..108....1C. doi:10.1086/133686. JSTOR 40680678.
• Burbidge, G. (1996). "William Alfred Fowler, 1911 - 14 March 1995". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 37: 89. Bibcode:1996QJRAS..37...89B.

External links

• 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
• A Brief Autobiography of W.A. Fowler
• Bruce Medal page
• 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, Caltech Archives Oral Histories Online