Walter Sydney Adams

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For other persons named Walter Adams, see Walter Adams (disambiguation).

Walter Sydney Adams (December 20, 1876 – May 11, 1956) was an American astronomer.

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[edit] Life and work

He was born in Antioch, Syria to missionary parents, and was brought to the U.S. in 1885[1] He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1898, then continued his education 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. 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 in Pasadena, California.

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Awards

Named after him

[edit] References

  1. ^ F.J.M. Stratton. "Walter Sydney Adams. 1876-1956." Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 2. (Nov., 1956), pp. 1-18.
  • Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Isaac Asimov, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1972, ISBN 0-385-17771-2.
  • 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

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[edit] Obituaries

[edit] Further Reading