Fred C. Adams is an American astrophysicist who has made contributions to the study of physical cosmology

Physical cosmology

Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. For most of human history, it was a branch of metaphysics and religion...

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Biography

Fred Adams is professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

 at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, where his main field of research is astrophysics

Astrophysics

Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...

 theory focusing on star formation, background radiation

Radiation

In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...

 fields

Field (physics)

In physics, a field is a physical quantity associated with each point of spacetime. A field can be classified as a scalar field, a vector field, a spinor field, or a tensor field according to whether the value of the field at each point is a scalar, a vector, a spinor or, more generally, a tensor,...

, and the early universe.
He was educated at Iowa State University

Iowa State University

Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...

, where he earned his B.S. in 1983, and at University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, earning his Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in 1988. He continued his research at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is one of the largest and most diverse astrophysical institutions in the world, where scientists carry out a broad program of research in astronomy, astrophysics, earth and space sciences, and science education...

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Adams works in the general area of theoretical astrophysics with a focus on the study of star formation

Star formation

Star formation is the process by which dense parts of molecular clouds collapse into a ball of plasma to form a star. As a branch of astronomy star formation includes the study of the interstellar medium and giant molecular clouds as precursors to the star formation process and the study of young...

 and cosmology. He is internationally recognized for his work on the radioactive signature of the star formation process, the dynamics of circumstellar disks, and the physics of molecular cloud

Molecular cloud

A molecular cloud, sometimes called a stellar nursery if star formation is occurring within, is a type of interstellar cloud whose density and size permits the formation of molecules, most commonly molecular hydrogen ....

s. He has received recognition as an astrophysicist including the Robert J. Trumpler Award

Robert J. Trumpler Award

The Robert J. Trumpler Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific is given annually to a recent recipient of the Ph.D degree whose thesis is judged particularly significant to astronomy. The award is named after Robert Julius Trumpler, a notable Swiss-American astronomer .-Previous award...

 and the Helen B. Warner Prize. His recent work in star formation includes the development of a theory for the initial mass function for forming stars and studies of extra-solar planetary systems. In cosmology, he has studied many aspects of the inflationary universe, cosmological phase transitions, magnetic monopoles, cosmic rays, anti-matter, the cosmic background radiation, galactic halos of dark matter, and the long-term future of the universe.

He is the co-author of the book The Five Ages of the Universe

The Five Ages of the Universe

The Five Ages Of The Universe is a popular science book written by Professor Fred Adams and Gregory Laughlin first published in 1999.- Book contents :...

with Greg Laughlin.

Writings

He has written many scientific research articles including:

• Proton Decay, Black Holes, and Large Extra Dimensions, (F. C. Adams, G. L. Kane, M. Mbonye, and M. J. Perry), International Journal of Modern Physics A 16, 2399-2410 hep-ph/0009154 (2001).
• Modes of Multiple Star Formation, (F. C. Adams and P. C. Myers), The Astrophysical Journal 553 744-753 astro-ph/0102039 (2001). A Theoretical Model for the Mbh— ó Relation for Supermassive Black Holes in Galaxies, (F. C. Adams, D. S. Graff, and D. O. Richstone), The Astrophysical Journal Letters 551, L31-35 astro-ph/0010549 (2001).
• Stability and Chaos in the Upsilon Andromedae Planetary System, (G. Laughlin and F. C. Adams), The Astrophysical Journal 526, 881-889 (1999).
• A Dying Universe: The Long Term Fate and Evolution of Astrophysical Objects, (F. C. Adams and G. Laughlin), Reviews of Modern Physics 69, 337-372 (1997).
• A Theory of the Initial Mass Function for Star Farmation in Molecular Clouds, (F. C. Adams and M. Fatuzzo), The Astrophysical Journal 464, 256-271 (1996).
• Vortices in Circumstellar Disks, (F. C. Adams and R. Watkins), The Astrophysical Journal 451, 314-327 (1995).
• Spectral Evolution of Young Stellar Objects, (F. C. Adams, C. J. Lada, and F. H. Shu), The Astrophysical Journal 312, 788-806 (1987).
• The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity, (F. Adams and G. Laughlin), New York: The Free Press 256 pages, ISBN 0-684-85422-8 (1999).
• Origins of Existence: How Life Emerged in the Universe, (F. Adams), New York: The Free Press 256 pages, ISBN 0-7432-1262-2 (2002).