Rosemary Fowler discovered the kaon particle when she was only 22 years old and the results of this discovery were published in several academic papers of which she is cited as first author. However, a year after this discovery, he decided to leave academia to get married.
Nearly eight decades ago, Rosemary Fowler (née Brown) managed to detect something strange when observing traces of particles in photographic emulsions exposed to cosmic rays at the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland.
It was a particle that broke down into three pions.
Today we know that what he saw was evidence of a type of subatomic particle called kaon or mesonic K particle. Its discovery set off a series of events that allowed us to rewrite our understanding of physical of particles and also paved the way for other crucial research that would come to light later.
When she made her discovery, the British woman was just 22 years old and doing her PhD at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Everything indicated that her future in physics would be promising. But she then decided to leave university to start a family with her new husband, Peter Fowler.
Several years after this point, Fowler received significant recognition for his work. And his former academic house decided to award him an honorary doctorate at the age of 98.
Who is Rosemary Fowler, the physicist who helped predict particles like the Higgs boson?
Fowler was born in 1926 in Suffolk, United Kingdom. However, part of his childhood was spent in Malta and then in English cities such as Portsmouth and Bath thanks to his father’s work as an engineer in the Royal Navy.
From his early school years, he showed that he had a great affinity for science and mathematics, so it is not surprising that he wanted to pursue university studies in this field.
According to Royal Astronomical Society , The Briton was the only girl in her class to go to university and became one of the first women to graduate with a physics degree from the University of Bristol.
After graduating, she began a PhD student in the group of Cecil Powell, a Nobel Prize winner in physics and one of the first to use plates coated with nuclear emulsion to analyze cosmic rays entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
So, in 1958, the team led by Powell began the search for new fundamental particles.
Fowler, then 22, was analyzing images when he discovered a particle that was disintegrating into three ions.
The first person he told about what he had seen was his fellow physicist, Peter Fowler.
“I knew right away that this was something new and that it would be very important. We were seeing things that had never been seen before, that’s what particle physics research is all about. It was very moving.” he said.
What he observed he called a k-track, now known as a kaon. Although the image had been seen by other researchers at the University of Manchester, the imprint they had seen had broken up into two pions, not three, as Fowler had observed.
This discovery triggered several transformations in particle physics and was essential in helping to predict particles like the Higgs Pocket discovered in Geneva, Switzerland. Shortly after, her results were published in three academic papers of which she is cited as first author, including two in the journal Nature.
Due to the post-war difficulties experienced by the United Kingdom, In 1949, Fowler chose to leave academia to marry Peter and start a family life. and at the same time support her husband’s career.
Over time, the couple had three children who also devoted themselves to science: Anne Fowler studied science at Bristol, Sue Fowler studied natural sciences and geophysics at Cambridge, and Mary Fowler studied mathematics and geophysics at Cambridge.
The gratitude
Fowler has received the recognition he deserves for his contribution to physics, nearly eight decades after his important discovery.
At a private ceremony near her home in Cambridge, the 98-year-old Briton was named Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Bristol. There she was accompanied by her children and grandchildren, many of whom are also involved in science.
Fowler said that while she felt honored by the recognition, she also added that “Since then, I have done nothing that deserves any particular respect.” .
While Paul Nurse, Chancellor of the University of Bristol and Nobel Prize-winning scientist in physiology in 2001, applauded Fowler’s “intellectual rigour and curiosity”.
The rector also assured that she “paved the way for critical discoveries that continue to shape the work of today’s physicists and our understanding of the universe.”
“I’m very happy for my mother. As a child, I wanted to be a physicist because it seemed very exciting. Since my parents were physicists, physics and research were common topics of conversation at the kitchen table,” added Mary, one of Fowler’s daughters.
In January this year, Suzie Sheehy, a professor of physics at the University of Melbourne in Australia, wrote an article for the journal Nature on the great contributions Fowler has made in the past.
“When Rosemary Brown identified a strange particle decay 75 years ago, she set in motion events that would rewrite the laws of physics.” said the academic.
Sheehy said in her paper that the years before and after World War II were the golden age of particle discovery. And when Fowler discovered the clue, she was sure what it was, but physicists had to spend several years investigating the causes of this phenomenon.
“When they finally found it, they shattered the idea that the laws of nature adhere to certain symmetrical modes of operation, with repercussions that persist to this day,” the professor explained.
Source: Latercera
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