Earle Fowler 1921–2008
Earle Cabell Fowler died on 1 March 2008 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In a long career in high-energy physics he led research groups, a university department, and a team at the US Department of Energy (DOE).
Born on 10 June 1921 in Kentucky, Earle studied chemistry at the University of Kentucky and served as a meteorologist in the Army Air Force during the Second World War. He then studied physics at Harvard, using a cloud chamber to investigate cosmic rays.
After completing his PhD in 1949, Earle became a member of Ralph Shutt's group at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, later joined by his brother Bill. The group built a cloud chamber for the Cosmotron; this early tracking chamber led to a very productive bubble chamber programme at both the Cosmotron and the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).
Earle moved to Yale in 1952 and used the Brookhaven accelerators in collaboration with the Shutt group. The Yale approach was a model for university–laboratory collaborations in physics. With colleagues Horace Taft and Jack Sandweiss, Earle encouraged students to work on detectors as well as analysis; he also wrote a book on strange particles with Bob Adair.
In 1962 Earle moved to Duke University, continuing his research programme at the AGS. He hosted several conferences on hadron resonances and helped to establish a university computer centre. From 1967 to 1969 he was a charter member of the High-Energy Physics Advisory Panel appointed by the Atomic Energy Commission. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society and secretary-treasurer of its Division of Particles and Fields.
Earle became head of the physics department at Purdue University in 1972. He found time to continue his research, by now at SLAC and Fermilab, and hosted a major conference, Neutrino-78. He spent a year with Bill Willis's group at CERN, helping them to commission their detector at the Intersecting Storage Rings.
In 1980 Earle joined the DOE and led its Facility Operations Team for High Energy Physics. His substantial experience was a key resource for DOE. He managed the US–China Agreement on High Energy Physics and worked on site selection for the Superconducting Super Collider. He retired in 1997 and went home to Chapel Hill.
Earle's judgement and wisdom were assets to high-energy physics. He was a lively, engaging person who provided inspiration and guidance to graduate students and senior physicists alike. We miss him.
Neil Baggett, Bill Fowler, James Sanford and Bill Willis.