Ralph Fowler
| Sir Ralph Howard Fowler | |
|---|---|
London 1934
|
|
| Born |
17 January 1889 Fedsden, Roydon, Essex, England |
| Died | 28 July 1944 (aged 55) Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Physicist |
| Institutions | Cambridge University |
| Alma mater | Cambridge University |
| Academic advisors | Archibald Vivian Hill |
| Doctoral students |
Garrett Birkhoff S. Chandrasekhar Paul Dirac Wang Zhuxi Homi J. Bhabha Douglas Rayner Hartree John Lennard-Jones Harrie Massey William McCrea Nevill Francis Mott Maurice Pryce Bertha Swirles |
| Known for |
Statistical physics Fowler-Nordheim-type equations |
| Notable awards |
Rayleigh Prize (1913) Adams Prize (1924) Royal Medal (1936) Fellow of the Royal Society |
Sir Ralph Howard Fowler OBE FRS (17 January 1889 – 28 July 1944) was a British physicist and astronomer.
Fowler was initially educated at home but then attended Evans' preparatory school at Horris Hill and Winchester College. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge and read mathematics, becoming a wrangler in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos.
In the First World War 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 Experimental Department of HMS Excellent on Whale Island. He made a major contribution on the aerodynamics of spinning shells. He was awarded the OBE in 1918.
In 1919, Fowler returned to Trinity and was appointed college lecturer in mathematics in 1920. Here he worked on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, 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. He became research supervisor to Paul Dirac and, in 1926, worked with him on the statistical mechanics of white dwarf stars. In 1928 he published (with Lothar Nordheim) a seminal paper that explained the physical phenomenon now known as field electron emission, 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. In 1932 he was elected to the Chair of Theoretical Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory.
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