William A. Fowler was born on 9 August 1911, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to John MacLeod, an accountant, and Jennie Summers (Watson) Fowler. When William was two years old, his family moved to Lima, Ohio, where he attended Horace Mann Grade School and Central High School.

Fowler received his bachelor's degree from Ohio State University in 1933 and his Ph.D. in nuclear physics at the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) in 1936. Immediately, he was offered a job as research fellow at Kellogg and then, over the next 45 years, was promoted from assistant to full professor. He retired from the California Institute of Technology in 1982 and was named emeritus professor of physics.

Fowler entered Ohio State University in the fall of 1929 intending to major in ceramic engineering. Two years later, however, he switched to engineering physics, a field in which he would earn his bachelor of...