Fowler, William Alfred

Fowler, William Alfred, 1911–95, American nuclear astrophysicist, b. Pittsburgh. While a professor at the California Institute of Technology, Fowler studied how chemical elements are formed in nuclear reactions, especially in the evolution of stars. For his work in this area he shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Fowler also studied the radio emissions of quasars and the functioning of subatomic particles such as neutrinos.

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Fowler, William Alfred (1911–  ) astrophysicist; born in Pittsburgh, Pa. As a civilian, he first participated in military ordnance research at the Kellogg Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., during World War II. He then turned his attention to the energy in stars. An emeritus professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology since 1982, he shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in physics for his studies of how chemical elements are formed in the universe.