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American nuclear physicist (1911–1995)

William Alfred Fowler (August 9, 1911 March 14, 1995) was an American nuclear physicist, later astrophysicist, who, with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is known for his theoretical and experimental research into nuclear reactions within stars and the energy elements produced in the process and was one of the authors of the influential BFH paper.

On , Fowler was born in Pittsburgh. Fowler's parents were John MacLeod Fowler and Jennie Summers Watson. Fowler was the eldest of his siblings, Arthur and Nelda. The family moved to Lima, Ohio, a steam railroad town, when Fowler was two years old. 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 route that connects Khabarovsk and Moscow.

In 1933, Fowler graduated from the Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. In 1936, Fowler received a Ph. D. in nuclear physics from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

In 1936, Fowler became a research fellow at Caltech. He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1938. In 1939, Fowler became an assistant professor at Caltech. categorized most nuclear processes for origin of all but the lightest chemical elements in stars. It is widely known as the BFH paper. Though the theory of Stellar Nucleosynthesis established in the paper was later cited by the Nobel Committee as the reason for his 1983 Nobel in Physics, Margaret Burbidge did not share in the award. In 1942, Fowler became an associate professor at Caltech. In 1946, Fowler became a Professor at Caltech. Fowler succeeded Charles Lauritsen as director of the W. K. Kellogg Radiation Laboratory at Caltech, and was himself later succeeded by Steven E. Koonin. Fowler was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Gerald Ford. Fowler was Guggenheim Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge in 1962–63. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1962, won the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1963, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965, won the Vetlesen Prize in 1973, the Eddington Medal in 1978, the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1979, and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 (shared with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar) for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe
Fowler's doctoral students at Caltech included Donald D. Clayton.

A lifelong fan of steam locomotives, Fowler owned several working models of various sizes. Fowler's first wife was Adriane Fay (née Olmsted) Fowler (1912–1988). They had two daughters, Mary Emily and Martha. In December 1989, Fowler married Mary Dutcher (1919–2019), an artist, in Pasadena, California.