Fred Chester Adams

Background

Fred Chester Adams was born on February 8, 1961, in Redwood City, California, United States, to Richard D. Adams and Esther Klaich Adams.

Education

In 1983, Adams received a Bachelor of Science from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. from the University of California in Berkeley in 1988.

Career

Fred Adams began his career as a research member at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in 1988. Since 1991 he is a professor of Physics at the University of Michigan.

Adams works in the general area of theoretical astrophysics with a focus on the study of star formation and cosmology. He is also the co-author of the book The Five Ages of the Universe with Greg Laughlin.

Achievements

• Fred Adams is internationally recognized for his work on the radiation signature of the star formation process, the dynamics of circumstellar disks, and the physics of molecular clouds.
  
  He has received recognition as an astrophysicist including the Trumpler Award and the Helen B. Warner Prize.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Origins of Existence: How Life Emerged in the Universe

    (In Origins of Existence astrophysicist Fred Adams takes a...)

    2002
  • The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity

    (In The Five Ages of the Universe, Adams and Laughlin demo...)

    1999

Views

Fred combines intellect and imagination to unveil how the universe may have unfolded and how it might continue to unfold. Adams' first work, The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity, offers an astrophysical look at the universe from its origins to its demise. In order to properly "view" this span, Adams and coauthor Greg Laughlin invent a new measurement of time called the "cosmological decade." The end phase comes in the year 10 to the 100th power: 10 followed by 100 zeros. The time frame is inconceivably long, yet Adams attempts to make it conceivable. He divides the life of the universe into five sections: the Primordial Era (the first 100,000 years when radiation was the primary force); the Stelliferous Era (which we are now experiencing, dominated by stars and galaxies); the Degenerate Era (marked by lack of hydrogen and star death); the Black Hole Era (dominated by, of course, black holes); and the Dark Era (the final period during which there are no stellar objects of any kind).

Adams' next exploration looks at the emergence of life in the Stelliferous Era. In Origins of Existence: How Life Emerged in the Universe, he suggests that life emerged on Earth, perhaps by accident, deep beneath the surface of the planet. Life germinated in the heat of the subterranean furnace, not from the soupy primordial pond preferred by the life scientists of the previous century. Then, he extrapolates, if life emerged from microbes deep within the earth, it might be equally possible for the seeds of life to be hidden within other bodies of the universe, or even other universes not subject to the laws of physics as we know them. There they await the cataclysmic moment of opportunity that could propel them into complex life forms suited to their own unique habitat.

Membership

Fred Adams is a member of the International Astronomical Union, American Mathematics Society, American Astronomical Society and Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Connections

On June 27, 1987, Adams married Katherine Freese. They have a son, Douglas Q. Adams.

Father:

Richard D. Adams

Mother:

Esther Adams

Spouse:

Katherine Freese

child:

Douglas Q. Adams

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series brings researchers the most recent data on the worlds most-popular authors.
  2010