William Alfred Fowler
American nuclear physicist (1911–1995)
Who was William Alfred Fowler?
William Alfred Fowler lived from August 9, 1911 to March 14, 1995. On 9 August 1911, Fowler was born in Pittsburgh. The family moved to Lima, Ohio, a steam railroad town, when Fowler was two years old. William Alfred Fowler (August 9, 1911 – March 14, 1995) was an American astrophysicist. Fowler's parents were John MacLeod Fowler and Jennie Summers Watson. Fowler was the eldest of his siblings, Arthur and Nelda. 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.
Historical significance
He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe." He is known for his theoretical and experimental research into nuclear reactions within stars and the energy elements produced in the process. With Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge and Fred Hoyle, he authored the influential B2FH paper, Synthesis of the Elements in Stars.