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Sir Paul Nurse, the chancellor of the University of Bristol, said Fowler "paved the way for critical discoveries that continue to shape the work of today's physicists, and our understanding of the universe."
Fowler was 22 when she discovered a particle that decayed into three pions. This particle was later dubbed the kaon.
"I knew at once that it was new and would be very important. We were seeing things that hadn't been seen before -- that's what research in particle physics was. It was very exciting," she said.
Fowler was made an honorary Doctor of Science in a private graduation ceremony near her Cambridge home.
"I'm really pleased for my mother," daughter Mary Fowler said. "As a child I wanted to be a physicist because it seemed to be so exciting. With both parents being physicists, physics and research was a normal topic of conversation across the kitchen table. "
"My mother remained very connected with the Bristol Physics Department, and the university, because my father joined the academic staff as did a number of their student friends," she said.