Adam Frank
was a contributor to the NPR blog . A professor at the University of Rochester, Frank is a theoretical/computational astrophysicist and currently heads a research group developing supercomputer code to study the formation and death of stars. Frank's research has also explored the evolution of newly born planets and the structure of clouds in the interstellar medium. Recently, he has begun work in the fields of astrobiology and network theory/data science. Frank also holds a joint appointment at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a Department of Energy fusion lab.
Frank is the author of two books: The Constant Fire, Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate (University of California Press, 2010), which was one of SEED magazine's "Best Picks of The Year," and About Time, Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang (Free Press, 2011). He has contributed to The New York Times and magazines such as Discover, Scientific American and Tricycle.
Frank's work has also appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009. In 1999 he was awarded an American Astronomical Society prize for his science writing.
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The vast web of geometries traced out in light shows you cities as a kind of infestation. They're like living networks spreading across the planet. -
There are days can't be set down on a calendar a year in advance. Their appearance is a testament to the fact that we are more than rational, calculating machines lifted above the natural world.
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The second law of thermodynamics is a kind of warning to cities and civilization. No matter how clever we are, disorder, waste and pollution will always follow from our work organizing societies into cities. -
Astrophysicist Adam Frank doesn't usually read self-help books, but something about Walker Percy's existential optimism in Lost In The Cosmos actually changed his outlook on life. Do you have a favorite self-help book? Tell us in the comments below.
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Astrophysicist Adam Frank says that private rocket ships will launch a sure future for Americans. -
John McCarthy, who coined the phrase "artificial intelligence," died Monday after a long career of computer science breakthroughs. Commentator Adam Frank explains why there's nothing artificial about McCarthy's effect on technology. -
We're living in the twilight of both the big bang and the cultural time that goes along with it. We're nearing the end of time as we know it now and as we live it now. -
If these results are correct then we would have to go back and start rebuilding pretty much all of modern foundational physics. -
Newly formed stars fire powerful beams of gas into space. Now, astronomers have created a movie showing how these "protostellar jets" move, using pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope across more than a decade.
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Einstein taught us that time does not flow at the same rate for everyone. Highway relativity teaches us the same.
