Sir Ralph Howard Fowler (17 January 1889 – 28 July 1944) was a British

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

Education

Fowler was born at Roydon,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, on 17 January 1889 to Howard Fowler, from

Burnham Burnham may refer to: Places Canada *Burnham, Saskatchewan England *Burnham, Buckinghamshire ** Burnham railway station ** Burnham Grammar School *Burnham Green, Hertfordshire, location of The White Horse * Burnham, Lincolnshire **High Burnham, ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, and Frances Eva, daughter of George Dewhurst, a cotton merchant from

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. He was initially educated at home, going on to attend Evans' preparatory school at Horris Hill and

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...

. He won a scholarship to

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

and studied mathematics, becoming a wrangler in Part II of the

Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. It is the oldest Tripos examined at the University. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a ...

War service

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he obtained a commission in the Royal Marine Artillery and was seriously wounded in his shoulder in the Gallipoli campaign. The wound enabled his friend Archibald Hill to use his talents properly. As Hill's second in command he worked on anti-aircraft ballistics in the

Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section The Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section of the Munitions Inventions Department was an organisation set up within Lloyd George's Ministry of Munitions in early 1916. Originally based at RAF Northolt, Northholt aerodrome, in May 1916 the section moved ...

of HMS ''Excellent'' on Whale Island. He made a major contribution on the

aerodynamics Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...

of spinning shells. He was awarded the

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1918.

Academic career

In 1919, Fowler returned to Trinity and was appointed college lecturer in mathematics in 1920. Here he worked on

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...

and

statistical mechanics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. It does not assume or postulate any natural laws, but explains the macroscopic be ...

, bringing a new approach to physical chemistry. With Arthur Milne, a comrade during the war, he wrote a seminal work on stellar spectra, temperatures, and pressures. In 1925 he was made a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. He became research supervisor to

Paul Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the Univer ...

and, in 1926, worked with him on the statistical mechanics of

white dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

stars. In 1927 he was one of the participants of the fifth

Solvay Conference The Solvay Conferences (french: Conseils Solvay) have been devoted to outstanding preeminent open problems in both physics and chemistry. They began with the historic invitation-only 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics, considered a turning point i ...

on Physics that took place at the International Solvay Institute for Physics in Belgium. In 1928 he published (with Lothar Nordheim) a seminal paper that explained the physical phenomenon now known as

field electron emission Field electron emission, also known as field emission (FE) and electron field emission, is emission of electrons induced by an electrostatic field. The most common context is field emission from a solid surface into a vacuum. However, field emissio ...

, and helped to establish the validity of modern electron band theory. In 1931, he was the first to formulate and label the

zeroth law of thermodynamics The zeroth law of thermodynamics is one of the four principal laws of thermodynamics. It provides an independent definition of temperature without reference to entropy, which is defined in the second law. The law was established by Ralph H. Fowl ...

.Y. Cengel, M. Boles, ''Thermodynamics – An Engineering Approach'' 5th ed. In 1932 he was elected to the Chair of Theoretical Physics at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

. In 1939, when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

began, he resumed his work with the Ordnance Board, despite poor health, and was chosen for scientific liaison with Canada and the United States. He knew America well, having visiting professorships at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

and the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

. For this liaison work he was knighted in 1942 (see

MAUD Committee The MAUD Committee was a British scientific working group formed during the Second World War. It was established to perform the research required to determine if an atomic bomb was feasible. The name MAUD came from a strange line in a telegram fro ...

). He returned to Britain later in the war and worked for the Ordnance Board and the Admiralty up until a few weeks before his death in 1944. Fifteen Fellows of the Royal Society and three Nobel Laureates (Chandrasekhar, Dirac, and Mott) were supervised by Fowler between 1922 and 1939. In addition to Milne, he worked with Sir Arthur Eddington,

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; ) (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for "... ...

and Sir William McCrea. It was Fowler who introduced Dirac to quantum theory in 1923. Fowler also put Dirac and

Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent series ...

in touch with each other through Niels Bohr. At Cambridge he supervised the doctoral studies of 64 students, including John Lennard-Jones,

and Garrett Birkhoff. The

Fowler Islands The Fowler Islands () are a group of small islands lying between the Bernal Islands and the Bragg Islands in Crystal Sound, off the coast of Antarctica. They were mapped from air photos obtained by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (1947� ...

, in

Crystal Sound Crystal Sound () is a sound in Antarctica between the southern part of the Biscoe Islands and the coast of Graham Land, with northern limit Cape Evensen to Cape Leblond and southern limit Holdfast Point, Roux Island, Liard Island and the Sil ...

, on the Antarctic Peninsula were named by the

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

in his honour.

Personal life

Fowler was a keen amateur

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played as a

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

. He played for

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

in 1908 and 1909. In 1921 he married Eileen Mary (1901–1930), the only daughter of Ernest Rutherford. They had four children, two daughters and two sons. Eileen died after the birth of their last child. One of his grandchildren is Mary Fowler, a geophysicist and the sixth Master (2012–2020) of

Darwin College, Cambridge Darwin College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded on 28 July 1964, Darwin was Cambridge University's first graduate-only college, and also the first to admit both men and women. The college is named after one of the ...

Selected publications

* * * *with

E. A. Guggenheim Edward Armand Guggenheim FRS (11 August 1901 in Manchester – 9 August 1970) was an English physical chemist, noted for his contributions to thermodynamics. Life Guggenheim was born in Manchester 11 August 1901, the son of Armand Guggenheim and ...

References

External links

Biography of Ernest Rutherford, with names of Ralph & Eileen's children

Ralph Howard Fowler
Trinity College Chapel * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fowler, Ralph 1889 births 1944 deaths People from Roydon, Essex People educated at Winchester College Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge British physicists Fellows of the Royal Society Military personnel from Essex Fellows of the American Physical Society Royal Marines officers Royal Marines personnel of World War I Royal Medal winners English cricketers Norfolk cricketers Officers of the Order of the British Empire Wicket-keepers John Humphrey Plummer Professors