Nauka i natura

robert v. wagoner, william a. fowler, fred hoyle and donald d. clayton in february 1967, between sloan laboratory and west bridge laboratory on the caltech campus. the famous collaboration between fowler and hoyle was then at its zenith. fowler was 55 years old, hoyle 51. wagoner was resarch associate at caltech and clayton was visiting faculty (on leave from rice university during academic year 1966-67). all four were preparing to move in april 1967 to cambridge uk for the opening of hoyle's new institute for theoretical astronomy. wfh were preparing to submit their paper on big-bang nucleosynthesis and fowler and clayton (31 years old) had just submitted their first paper on silicon burning. that paper (phys. rev. lett. 20, 161 (1968)) changed thinking on the origin of iron from hoyle's original e-process to radiogenic iron. the full history of the discovery that natural iron is the radiogenic daughter of supernova produced 56ni and 57ni has been published in meteoritics and planetary science, 34, a145 (1999). this photograph has been published in an obituary of fowler by clayton (pasp 108, 3 (1996)).