Walter Sydney Adams

Walter Sydney Adams
Walter Sydney Adams
Born	December 20, 1876 Antioch, Turkey
Died	May 11, 1956 (aged 79) Pasadena, California, U.S.
Nationality	United States
Fields	Astronomy
Institutions	Mount Wilson Observatory
Alma mater	Dartmouth College
Notable awards	Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1917) Henry Draper Medal (1918) Valz Prize (1923) Bruce Medal (1928) ForMemRS (1950)[1]

Walter Sydney Adams (December 20, 1876 – May 11, 1956) was an American astronomer.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Life and work

Adams was born in Antioch, Turkey to Lucien Harper Adams and Nancy Dorrance Francis Adams, missionary parents,^[7] and was brought to the U.S. in 1885^[1] He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1898, then continued his education in Chicago and in Germany. After returning to the U.S., he began a career in Astronomy that culminated when he became director of the Mount Wilson Observatory.

His primary interest was the study of stellar spectra. He worked on solar spectroscopy and co-discovered a relationship between the relative intensities of certain spectral lines and the absolute magnitude of a star. He was able to demonstrate that spectra could be used to determine whether a star was a giant or a dwarf. In 1915 he began a study of the companion of Sirius and found that despite a size only slightly larger than the Earth, the surface of the star was brighter per unit area than the Sun and it was about as massive.^[8] Such a star later came to be known as a white dwarf. Along with Theodore Dunham, he discovered the strong presence of carbon dioxide in the infrared spectrum of Venus.

Adams died at the age of 79 in Pasadena, California.

Awards and Honors

Awards and honors

• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1917)^[9]
• Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences (1918)^[10]
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1922)^[11]
• Valz Prize from the French Academy of Sciences (1923)^[12]
• Bruce Medal (1928)^[13][14]
• Janssen Medal from the French Academy of Sciences (1934)
• Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) (1950)^[1]
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1947)

Named after him

• The asteroid 3145 Walter Adams.
• A crater on Mars.
• The crater Adams on the Moon is jointly named after him, John Couch Adams and Charles Hitchcock Adams.

References

1. Stratton, F. J. M. (1956). "Walter Sydney Adams 1876-1956". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 2: 1–25. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1956.0001. JSTOR 769472.
2. Walter Sydney Adams — Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
3. MNRAS 117 (1957) 243
4. Obs 76 (1956) 139
5. PASP 68 (1956) 285
6. Wright, Helen (1970). "Adams, Walter Sydney". Dictionary of Scientific Biography 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 54–58. ISBN 0-684-10114-9.
7. http://www.amphilsoc.org/mole/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.Ad19-ead.xml#bioghist
8. F. Wesemael, A comment on Adams' measurement of the gravitational redshift of Sirius B Royal Astronomical Society, Quarterly Journal (ISSN 0035-8738), 26, Sept. 1985, 273-278
9. Awarding of RAS gold medal
10. "Henry Draper Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 19 February 2011.
11. "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
12. "Prix Benjamin Valz". Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences. December 17, 1923. p. 1366.
13. Bruce Medal page
14. Awarding of Bruce Medal

Further reading

• Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Isaac Asimov, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1972, ISBN 0-385-17771-2.