William Fowler

William Fowler shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for work on how chemical elements form in stars. His research helped explain stellar nucleosynthesis, the process behind many elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.

B2FH refers to a famous 1957 paper by Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler, and Fred Hoyle. It laid out a major framework for how stars build the elements.

Fowler was a nuclear physicist whose work became central to astrophysics. At Caltech, he connected nuclear reaction measurements to the life cycles of stars.

Fowler studied nuclear reactions that occur inside stars, where high temperature and pressure allow nuclei to fuse. Those reactions help account for elements such as carbon, oxygen, and many heavier nuclei.