Ralph H. Fowler

Sir Ralph Howard Fowler ( Roydon (Essex) , January 17 1889 - Cambridge (UK) , July 28 1944 ) was a British physicist and astronomer .

[Biography edit ]
Fowler was the eldest son of Howard Fowler and Frances Eva. He attended secondary school in Horris Hill and Winchester College. He won a scholarship to Trinity College of theUniversity of Cambridge where he studied mathematics from 1908 to 1915. During the First World War he became naval artillery officer in the Battle of Gallipoli seriously injured his shoulder. As a result, he was seconded by means of a research institute of the Navy where he worked on the aerodynamics of artillery. For his war efforts, he was honored in 1918 with the Order of the British Empire .

From 1920 he taught mathematics at Trinity College. He worked with Edward Arthur Milne and Paul Dirac in the field of astrophysics, the static mechanics and thermodynamics .In 1932 he obtained the chair of theoretical physics at the Cavendish Laboratory . Among his students were Nevill Mott , Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar , Homi Jehangir Bhabhaand John Lennard-Jones . After the outbreak of the Second World War, he again did military research and was a liaison with the United States.

In 1921 he entered the marriage with Eileen Rutherford (1901-1930), the only daughter of Nobel Laureate Ernest Rutherford . The couple had four children. Eileen died after the birth of their last child. Daughter Ruth married the IVF pioneer Robert Edwards . From 1925 Fowler was a member of the Royal Society, which he in 1936 the Royal Medalawarded. In 1942, Fowler was knighted.