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.
== References ==
== 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