Ralph Fowler

Ralph Howard Fowler (1889-1944)
Born	January 17, 1889 Fedsden, Roydon, Essex, UK
Died	July 28, 1944 Cambridge, UK
Residence	UK
Nationality	English
Field	Physicist
Institution	Cambridge University
Alma Mater	Cambridge University
Doctoral Advisor	Archibald Hill
Doctoral Students	Garrett Birkhoff, Thomas Cherry, Paul Dirac, John Lennard-Jones, Harrie Massey, William McCrea, F. Powell, M. Pryce, Noel Slater, A. Stevenson, Bertha Swirles, H. Taylor, Douglas Rayner Hartree
Known for	Statistical physics
Societies	Fellow, Royal Society

Sir Ralph Howard Fowler FRS (January 17, 1889 – July 28, 1944) was a British physicist and astronomer. Image File history File links Ralph_fowler. ... January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Roydon is a small village located in Essex, England. ... Essex is a county in the East of England. ... July 28 is the 209th day (210th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 156 days remaining. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... Map of the Cambridgeshire area (1904) The city of Cambridge is an old English university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the United Kingdom (light green), with the Republic of Ireland (blue) to its west Languages English Capital London Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population –mid-2004... Physicists working in a government lab A physicist is a scientist who is a practitioner of physics. ... The University of Cambridge (often called Cambridge University, or just Cambridge), located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The University of Cambridge (often called Cambridge University, or just Cambridge), located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Archibald Vivian Hill (September 26, 1886–June 3, 1977) was a British physiologist, one of the founders of the diverse discilines of biophysics and operations research. ... Garrett Birkhoff (January 19, 1911, Princeton, New Jersey, USA - November 22, 1996, Water Mill, New York, USA) was an American mathematician. ... Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, OM FRS (IPA: [dɪræk]) (August 8, 1902 – October 20, 1984) was a British theoretical physicist and a founder of the field of quantum physics. ... John Edward Lennard-Jones (October 27, 1894 - November 1, 1954) was a mathematician who held a chair of theoretical physics at Bristol University, and then a chair of theoretical science at Cambridge University. ... Sir Harrie Stewart Wilson Massey (16 May 1908 - 27 November 1983) was a highly accomplished and influential mathematical physicist who worked primarily in the fields of atomic and atmospheric physics. ... William McCrea could be William H. McCrea the astronomer William McCrea the Northern Ireland politician This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Bertha Swirles (Lady Jeffreys), (22 May 1903 - 18 December 1999) carried out research on quantum theory, particularly in its early days. ... Douglas Rayner Hartree (March 27, 1897 – February 12, 1958) was an English mathematician and physicist most famous for the development of numerical analysis and its application to atomic physics. ... Statistical physics, one of the fundamental theories of physics, uses methods of statistics in solving physical problems. ... The premises of the Royal Society in London (first four properties only). ... January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... July 28 is the 209th day (210th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 156 days remaining. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... Physicists working in a government lab A physicist is a scientist who is a practitioner of physics. ... An astronomer or astrophysicist is a scientist whose area of research is astronomy or astrophysics. ...

Fowler was initially educated at home but then attended Evans' preparatory school at Horris Hill and the Winchester College. Fowler then won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge and read mathematics becoming a wrangler in Part II of the Tripos. Winchester College is a public school in the city of Winchester in Hampshire, in the south of England. ... Full name The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity Motto Virtus vera nobilitas Virtue is true Nobility Named after The Holy Trinity Previous names Kings Hall and Michaelhouse (until merged in 1546) Established 1546 Sister College(s) Christ Church Master The Lord Rees of Ludlow Location Trinity Street... At the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, a wrangler is a student who has completed the third year (called Part II) of the Mathematical Tripos with first-class honours. ... The University of Cambridge, England, divides the different kinds of honours bachelors degree by Tripos, a word which has an obscure etymology, but which may be traced to the three-legged stool candidates once used to sit on when taking oral examinations. ...

In the First World War he obtained a commission in the Royal Marine Artillery and was seriously wounded in the shoulder at Gallipoli. The wound caused him to be introduced to Archibald Hill, who brought Fowler's abilities to the realm of physics. He worked as Hill's second in command working with the Experimental Department of HMS Excellent on Whale Island and made a major contribution on the aerodynamics of spinning shells for which he was awarded the OBE in 1918. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... Her Majestys Royal Marines, also known as the Royal Marines (RM), are the United Kingdoms amphibious force and Naval Infantry. ... Satellite image of the Gallipoli peninsula and surrounding area Gallipoli, called Gelibolu in modern Turkish, (Greek: Καλλίπολις), is a town in northwestern Turkey. ... Archibald Vivian Hill CH CBE (September 26, 1886–June 3, 1977) was a British physiologist, one of the founders of the diverse disciplines of biophysics and operations research. ... There have been a number of real ships named HMS Excellent over the years, but since around 1920 the name has been associated with the Royal Naval Gunnery training School at Whale Island in Portsmouth Harbour. ...

In 1919 Fowler returned to Trinity and was eventually 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 he also wrote a seminal work on stellar spectra, temperatures, and pressures. In 1926 he worked with Paul Dirac on the statistical mechanics of white dwarf stars. In 1932, he was elected to the Chair of Theoretical Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory. ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ... Statistical mechanics is the application of statistics, which includes mathematical tools for dealing with large populations, to the field of mechanics, which is concerned with the motion of particles or objects when subjected to a force. ... Edward Arthur Milne (February 14, 1896 – September 21, 1950) was a British mathematician and astrophysicist. ... Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, OM FRS (IPA: [dɪræk]) (August 8, 1902 – October 20, 1984) was a British theoretical physicist and a founder of the field of quantum physics. ... White dwarf Sirius-B in x-rays A white dwarf is an astronomical object which is produced when a low or medium mass star dies. ... Plaque The Cavendish Laboratory is Cambridge Universitys Department of Physics, and is part of the universitys School of Physical Sciences. ...

In 1939 when the Second World War broke out, he resumed his work with the Ordnance Board, despite poor health, and was eventually chosen to become a scientific liaison to Canada and the United States. He knew America well having visiting professorships at Princeton and the University of Wisconsin. For his work as this liaison, he was knighted in 1942 (see MAUD Committee). He returned to Britain later in the war and worked for the Ordnance Board and the Admiralty up a few weeks before his death in 1944. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey. ... The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public university located in Madison, Wisconsin. ... The Maud Committee was the beginning of the British atomic bomb project, before the United Kingdom joined forces with the United States in the Manhattan Project. ...

Fifteen Fellows of the Royal Society and three Nobel Laureates were supervised by Fowler between 1922 and 1939. In addition to Milne, he worked with Sir Arthur Eddington, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Paul Dirac, Sir William McCrea. It was Fowler who introduced Paul Dirac to quantum theory in 1923. Fowler also put Dirac and Werner Heisenberg in touch with each other through Niels Bohr. At Cambridge he supervised the doctoral studies of 64 students including John Lennard-Jones, Paul Dirac and Garrett Birkhoff. One of Sir Arthur Stanley Eddingtons papers announced Einsteins theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world. ... This article is about the Indian-American physicist. ... Sir William Hunter McCrea (13 December 1904 – April 25, 1999) was an astronomer and mathematician. ... Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976) was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of quantum mechanics. ... Niels Bohr Niels (Henrik David) Bohr (October 7, 1885 – November 18, 1962) was a Danish physicist who made essential contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics. ... John Edward Lennard-Jones (October 27, 1894 - November 1, 1954) was a mathematician who held a chair of theoretical physics at Bristol University, and then a chair of theoretical science at Cambridge University. ... Garrett Birkhoff (January 19, 1911, Princeton, New Jersey, USA - November 22, 1996, Water Mill, New York, USA) was an American mathematician. ...

In 1921, Ralph married Eileen, the daughter of Ernest Rutherford, They had four children but Eileen died after the birth of their last child. Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, PC, FRS (August 30, 1871 – October 19, 1937), was a nuclear physicist from New Zealand. ...

Ralph Howard Fowler was the eldest son of Howard Fowler and Frances Eva (the daughter of George Dewhurst the Manchester cotton merchant). He was described as being quite athletic and possessing a loud, though affable, laugh. He apparently inherited his athleticism from his father who was a star at rugby and cricket. His father was an Oxford man who was called to the bar, but instead of becoming a barrister went into business.

Ralph's early education was handled at home by a governess. When he was ten he matriculated at Evans' preparatory school at Horris Hill where he excelled at athletics, in particular cricket and football (soccer). At the age of 13, in 1902, Ralph won a scholarship to Winchester College placing second in the entrance examination (which apparently annoyed him despite the fact that he was sick at the time). He spent the next six years at Winchester where he became Prefect of Hall (Head of School) and won school prizes in mathematics and natural science. Once again, athletics was a major focus of Ralph's life, though despite his success at golf, he was outdone by his sister Dorothy who was a champion golfer.

Ralph's academic ability was exceptional at Winchester. His classical sixth form master, Frank Carter, believed he could have been as good a classical scholar as he was a mathematical scholar. But it was mathematics that attracted him. And his ability at mathematics was matched by his affable character. At Winchester Ralph made numerous friends. Despite his penchant for speaking plainly, he always made up for it after and this seemed to have an affect on people who, both at Winchester and later, seemed to gather around him.

His family life appeared to be equally well-balanced. He could often be found golfing with his father, sister, and brother Christopher. Family life at the Fowlers was apparently quite happy and Ralph's parents "spared nothing that their children's education should be as perfect as possible, with well-occupied vacations" [3]. During Ralph's stay at Winchester his family moved from Essex to Norfolk, taking up residence in Weybourne, near Sheringham which was where the Fowlers golfed regularly. A bit later they moved on to Glebelands, Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, but not before Ralph got in a bit of cricket, playing for Norfolk County for some time.

In December of 1906, Ralph won a Major Scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, and he left for Trinity during Michaelmas term 1908. At Trinity he read mathematics completing Part I of the Mathematical Tripos in 1909, taking a first class. In 1911 he became a wrangler in Part II of the Tripos. He received his BA degree in 1911 upon completion of Part II and received his MA in 1915. In 1913 he was awarded a Rayleigh Prize in Mathematics. Needless to say, Cambridge was quite good to Ralph - or, rather, Ralph was quite good to Cambridge.

After completion of his degree, Ralph took to researching pure mathematics. His adeptness and insight won him a Trinity Fellowship in October 1914. However, World War I had just broken out and he obtained a commission in the Royal Marine Artillery. He could often be seen at Trinity wearing his gown over his military khakis which was apparently quite an unusual site. The War was less unusual, being rather typical in handing out suffering. Ralph was not immune. In 1917 he lost his brother Christopher on the Somme which was quite a blow to him. Later he was to lose his two greatest friends at Winchester, A D Gillespie and R H Hutchison, in a similar manner. Ralph himself was severely wounded in the shoulder at Gallipoli. The wound turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag, however, as it caused him to be introduced to A V Hill, Captain in the Cambridgeshires, and a Fellow at King's College (and former Fellow at Trinity). For it was Hill who was ultimately the catalyst that brought Ralph's mathematical ability into the realm of physics.

Hill, in collaboration with Horace Darwin (of the ever-prolific Darwin family that included the physicist C G Darwin, Frances Galton, and the most famous of all, Horace's father, Charles Darwin, the evolutionist), had invented a mirrored system originally designed to determine the flight paths of aircraft and later used to target German zeppelins for anti-aircraft gunneries. Fowler came in just as they began to test the instrument in the field. As talented young scientists joined the group, it came to be known as "Hill's brigands" and it was here that Fowler made some of his most endearing friendships, not the least of which was E A Milne, who wrote several articles and obituaries on Fowler both before and after his death.

Fowler soon became Hill's second in command working with the Experimental Department of HMS Excellent on Whale Island. Fowler, being Assistant Director, was resident in Portsmouth while Hill traveled often to London often for commune with higher ranks. Hill eventually became a brevet Major while Fowler was made a Captain, RMA. Fowler recruited a long list of able mathematicians to join the group and, combined with Hill's inspirations, Fowler's mathematical ability led the group to a number of important works. Many were published in journals including two now classic papers that appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society that were to have a profound impact on the field of ballistics both in Britain and in North America, particularly in World War II.

Far from being a "paper-pusher," Fowler apparently was active in both the experiments as well as the laborious paper-writing. His work in this field led him, in particular, to consider wind structure and temperature structure at high altitudes which could have been the catalyst for his later interest in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. For his ballistics work, Ralph was awarded the OBE in 1918.

In 1919 Fowler left the service and returned to Trinity, though he was to have a part in the newly formed Ordnance Board during the Second World War later on. This was when Fowler came under the influence of Lord Rutherford who had just been appointed Cavendish Professor. The two became very good friends and Fowler was eventually appointed College Lecturer in Mathematics in 1920. Here he jumped into a variety of mathematical problems and eventually began moving to more recent problems in mathematical physics including work on various kinetic theories of gases, again leading him toward thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.

In 1921, Ralph married Eileen, the only daughter of Lord Rutherford, Ralph's good friend and colleague at Cambridge. The two were to have four children in the following nine years with Eileen dying just after the birth of the last.

In 1922, Ralph became a Proctor at Cambridge which, being a Marine, he was well-suited for, finding himself chasing after undergraduates frequently and, on one occasion, injuring himself doing so. It was also in 1922 that Ralph began what would be his most seminal work. It began as a collaboration with C G Darwin (another of the famous Darwin clan). The two began working on the problem of the partition of energy, inspired by works of Ehrenfest and Trkal. Having developed a new technique for approaching physical chemistry through statistical mechanics, the two, and later Fowler alone, justified a number of formulae and calculations performed by the likes of Saha, Lindemann, and Chapman. In 1922-23, Ralph established the validity of the dissociation formula for high temperature ionization. In early 1923, Ralph along with E A Milne, wrote a seminal work on stellar spectra, temperatures, and pressures. This work continued in a series of papers through the 1920s leading to the Adams Prize of the University of Cambridge in 1923-24 and was published in 1929 as the seminal volume, Statistical Mechanics, which had a second edition, minus the astrophysical applications, published in 1936. In 1939 a successor volume, entitled Statistical Thermodynamics, was co-authored and published with E A Guggenheim.

1926 marked the publication of his most seminal individual paper which linked the gaseous degenerate state (obeying quantum statistics, co-discovered by P A M Dirac, who was introduced to quantum theory by Fowler himself) to white dwarf stars. It is rumored that he was annoyed that he did not, at the same time, apply Fermi-Dirac statistics to conductors, something later done by Sommerfeld.

Fowler's range of interests kept him going throughout the next two decades as he produced papers on spectroscopy, physical chemistry, what is now known as condensed matter physics (or solid state physics), and magnetism in materials. He eventually took up a post in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge and, in 1932, he was elected to the newly created Plummer Chair of Theoretical Physics.

Working closely with his father-in-law, Lord Rutherford, he examined a number of interesting problems and delivered the 1935 Bakerian Lecture on specific heats of crystals and the 1934 Liversidge Lecture on the heavy isotope of hydrogen. In 1925 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and became a Fellow at Winchester in 1933. In 1936 he was awarded one of the Royal Medals and was appointed as Director of the National Physical Laboratory in 1938, though he was unable to take up the post due to ill health. According to Milne, the transformation from pure mathematician prior to World War I to physicist, engineer, and administrator by Word War II was nothing short of astonishing and a great tribute to Fowler's ability in practical matters.

In 1938, upon taking ill and not being able to take up the National Laboratory Directorship, he chose to remain at Cambridge in the Plummer Chair. In 1939 when war broke out, he immediately resumed his work with the Ordnance Board, despite his health, and was eventually chosen to become a scientific liaison to Canada and later the United States, two countries which he had formerly been familiar through visits to Toronto and visiting professorships at Princeton and the University of Wisconsin. For his work as this liaison, he was knighted in 1942.

He returned to Britain later in the war and was reportedly working for the Ordnance Board and the Admiralty up until just a few weeks prior to his very premature death in 1944.

It must be said that Sir Ralph Fowler was a brilliant physicist. But it may be for his influence upon others that he is best known. In fact, no less than fifteen Fellows of the Royal Society and three Nobel Laureates were supervised by Fowler between 1922 and 1939. The total number supervised during this time was a staggering sixty-four giving him an average of eleven research students at any given time. One might be led to believe that this did not allow for any depth of relationship to form between him and his students. However, this was far from the truth of the matter. Those who studied under Fowler had a tremendous admiration for him. In particular, E A Milne [1] was especially taken by the man whom he fondly referred to as "the kind of man you can still remain friendly with, even when he has sold you a motor-bike; it is not possible to say more" and whom he called a "prince amongst men" [2].

Aside from Milne, on whom he had a profound impact, he also had the opportunity of influencing the likes of Sir Arthur Eddington, Subramanian Chandrasekhar, Paul Dirac, Sir William McCrea, Lady Jeffreys and others either directly through supervision or indirectly through collaboration. Even in his personal life he was intimately connected with brilliant people having married Eileen, the only daughter of Lord Rutherford whom he met through Rutherford's Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. Sometimes his influence was simply the fact that he was known to so many people. It was Fowler who ultimately introduced Paul Dirac to the burgeoning field of quantum theory in 1923 leading Dirac to the forefront of its ultimate discovery in 1925. Fowler also put Dirac and Werner Heisenberg in touch with each other through Niels Bohr. As Sir William McCrea simply put it [3]: "he was the right man in the right place at the right time."

Fowler's influence was far-reaching, extending beyond the hallowed halls of Cambridge and into government, both British and foreign. This aspect of his life was once again partly a matter of timing. While serving in the Royal Marines during Gallipoli he was seriously wounded. During his recovery he met A V Hill whose work in anti-aircraft gunnery had spawned "Hill's Brigands," a group of talented scientists charged with developing better techniques for targeting German Zeppelins. This work led to two classic papers on the subject of the aerodynamics of spinning shells and, according to Milne, the work had a tremendous impact on ballistics both in Britain and North America. This experience also made Fowler influential enough to affect the actions of Britain and her allies twenty years later in the second World War.

During this later War, Fowler acted as a liaison between Britain and Canada and, later, Britain and the United States. In 1942 he was knighted, no doubt partly due to his heroic service to his country during both wars.