Fowler, William Alfred

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.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.