William A. Fowler

Facts

William Alfred Fowler

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

William Alfred Fowler
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1983

Born: 9 August 1911, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Died: 14 March 1995, Pasadena, CA, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA

Prize motivation: “for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe”

Prize share: 1/2

Work

Stars in the universe form from clouds of gas and dust. When these clouds are pulled together by gravitational force, energy is released in the form of heat. And when a high enough temperature is reached, reactions among the atomic nuclei in the star’s interior begin. These reactions are what causes radiation from stars. In the 1950s William Fowler showed how these nuclear reactions also account for how various elements are formed. These processes have created the elements that make up our earth and other heavenly bodies in the universe.

To cite this section
MLA style: William A. Fowler – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Thu. 7 Nov 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1983/fowler/facts/>

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