Alfred Fowler


Alfred Fowler, CBE FRS was an English astronomer and spectroscopist.

Early life and career

He was born in Wilsden on the outskirts of Bradford, Yorkshire and educated at London's Normal School of Science, which was later absorbed into Imperial College, London.
Fowler was appointed Instructor of Astrophysics at Imperial College and worked there until his death. He was an expert in spectroscopy, being one of the first to determine that the temperature of sunspots was cooler than that of surrounding regions.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1910, when his citation read
Fowler was president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1919 to 1921 and died in Ealing, London in 1940.

Pickering–Fowler series

In 1896, Edward Charles Pickering published observations of previously unknown lines in the spectra of the star Zeta Puppis, which he attributed to hydrogen. Fowler managed to reproduce these lines experimentally from a hydrogen-helium mixture in 1912, and agreed with Pickering's interpretation that they were previously unknown features in the spectrum of hydrogen. These lines became known as the Pickering-Fowler series and turned out to be of great significance in understanding the nature of the atom. Niels Bohr included a theoretical examination of these lines in his 'trilogy' on atomic structure and concluded that they had been wrongly attributed to hydrogen, arguing instead that they arose from ionised helium, He+. Fowler was initially skeptical but was ultimately convinced that Bohr was correct, and by 1915 "spectroscopists had transferred definitively to helium." Bohr's theoretical work on the series had demonstrated the need for "a re-examination of problems that seemed already to have been solved within classical theories" and provided important confirmation for his atomic theory.

Honours

Awards
Named after him
  • The crater Fowler on the Moon

    Published Papers

  • The Spectra of Metallic Arcs in an Exhausted Globe ;
  • Formulae for Spectrum Series ;
  • The Spectra of Antarian Stars in relation to the Fluted Spectrum of Titanium ;
  • Observations of the Spectra of Sunspots, Region C to D ;
  • Spectroscopic Observations of the Great Sunspot and Associated Prominences ;
  • Total Solar Eclipse, 1905, August 30 ;
  • High Level Chromosperic Lines and their Behaviour in Sunspot Spectra ;
  • Observations and Discussion of the Spectra of Sunspots, Region B to E ;
  • Enhanced Lines of Iron in the Region F to C, and Note on Silicon in the Chromosphere ;
  • The Fluted Spectrum of Titanium Oxide ;
  • The Origin of certain Bands in the Spectra of Sunspots ;
  • Report of Committee on Sunspot Spectra ;
  • The Spectrum of Scandium and its relation to Solar Spectra ;
  • The Reproduction of Prismatic Spectrum Photographs on a Uniform Scale of Wave-lengths ;
  • Spectroscopic Comparison of o Ceti with Titanium Oxide.

    Obituaries

Category:1868 births
Category:1940 deaths
Category:Scientists from Bradford
Category:20th-century English astronomers
Category:Academics of Imperial College London
Category:Royal Medal winners
Category:Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Category:Presidents of the Institute of Physics
Category:Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society
Category:19th-century English astronomers
Category:British fellows of the Royal Society