William Alfred Fowler
William Alfred Fowler | |
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F. Curtis Michel, Arthur B. McDonald |
William Alfred Fowler (August 9, 1911 – March 14, 1995) was an American nuclear physicist, later
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.[1][2]
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 2,500-kilometre (1,600 mi) route that connects Khabarovsk and Moscow.[3]
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.[4][5]
Career
In 1936, Fowler became a research fellow at Caltech. He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1938.[6] In 1939, Fowler became an assistant professor at Caltech.[4]
Although an experimental nuclear physicist, Fowler's most famous paper was his collaboration with Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, "
In 1942, Fowler became an associate professor at Caltech. In 1946, Fowler became a Professor at Caltech.[4] 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.[8]
Fowler succeeded
Fowler was Guggenheim Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge in 1962–63. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1962,[10] won the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1963, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965,[11] 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 .[12][13]
Fowler's doctoral students at Caltech included Donald D. Clayton.[14]
Personal life
A lifelong fan of steam locomotives, Fowler owned several working models of various sizes.[15]
Fowler's first wife was Adriane Fay (née Olmsted) Fowler (1912–1988). They had two daughters, Mary Emily and Martha.[2][16]
In December 1989, Fowler married Mary Dutcher (1919–2019), an artist, in Pasadena, California.[2][16] On 11 March 1995, Fowler died from kidney failure in Pasadena, California. He was 83.[2][17]
Publications
- Fowler, W.A.; (PDF) from the original on 2021-08-08.
- Cook, C.W.; Fowler, W.A.; .
- ISSN 0003-4916.
- OCLC 5975699.
- Fowler, W. A. (June 1958). Temperature and Density Conditions for Nucleogenesis by Fusion Processes in Stars. OSTI 4308210.
- Seeger, P. A.; Fowler, W. A.; doi:10.1086/190111. Archivedfrom the original on 2021-04-28. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- Bodansky, D.; from the original on 2021-07-23. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- Holmes, J.A.; .
- from the original on 2022-01-30. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
Obituaries
- Bibcode:1995BAAS...27.1475W. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-03-21. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- JSTOR 40680678.
- Bibcode:1996QJRAS..37...89B.
References
- ^ .
- ^ a b c d "William Alfred Fowler, Nobel Prize for Physics, 1983". Geni.com. 9 August 1911. Archived from the original on 2021-07-25. Retrieved 2019-07-20.
- .
- ^ a b c "William Alfred Fowler Biography". Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory. Archived from the original on 2016-07-02. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
- .
- ^ "Alfred Fowler". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2022-11-16.
- OCLC 5975699.
- ^ "Presidential Medal for Merit. February 2, 1948. - Published Papers and Official Documents - Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement". Oregon State University. Archived from the original on 2018-07-18. Retrieved 2022-02-26.
- ^ "Photo Archive in Nuclear Astrophysics". Clemson University. 1999. Archived from the original on 2018-01-29. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-11-16.
- ^ "William Alfred Fowler". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-11-16.
- ^ "William Alfred Fowler". Sonoma State University. 2021-07-07. Archived from the original on 2022-02-15. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ "William A. Fowler - Facts". Nobel Prize. Retrieved 2019-07-14.
- Caltech. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-03-21. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ "Photo Archive in Nuclear Astrophysics". Clemson University. 1999. Archived from the original on 2020-11-25. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ OCLC 1058326012. Archivedfrom the original on 2021-01-22. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-07-14.
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
- William Alfred Fowler on Nobelprize.org 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, Caltech Archives Oral Histories Online