science · 14 March 1995 · 29 years ago
death
Died 14 Mar 1995 at age 83 (born 9 Aug 1911).
William Alfred (Willy) Fowler was an American astrophysicist, who shared 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.” He spent much of his life measuring the rates nuclear reactions of astrophysical interest, as in the interior of stars. From 1964, Fowler made theoretical calculations relating to supernovae, gravitational collapse, neutrinos, formation of light elements, and nucleocosmochronology. Fowler co-authored a paper, Synthesis of the Elements in Stars, (with Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge and Fred Hoyle) which demonstrated how cosmic abundances of most nuclides (other than the lightest) could result from nuclear reactions in stars.
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