William Alfred Fowler was an American nuclear physicist, later astrophysicist, who, with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. Fowler was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated in 1933 from Ohio State University, and obtained his PhD in 1936 from the California Institute of Technology. He was immediately appointed to the staff, serving as professor of physics there from 1946 to 1970; he was Institute Professor from 1970 and professor emeritus from 1982. Fowler received the National Medal of Science from President Gerald Ford in 1974, and the Légion d'Honneur from President François Mitterrand of France in 1989, among many other honors, awards and associations. He was also proud of his membership in the Los Angeles Live Steamers and the National Association of Railroad Passengers. Fowler also worked in radio astronomy, proposing with Hoyle that the cores of radio galaxies are collapsed “superstars” emitting strong radio waves and that quasars are larger versions of these collapsed superstars. William Fowler died on March 14, 1995 in Pasadena, California, United States.