Adam Frank
Adam Frank was a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. 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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NPR science blogger and astrophysicist Adam Frank argues infrastructure must change in order to develop new, environmentally friendly forms of transportation.
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Through climate science, we learned to read entire worlds — and no one can take that achievement from us: We are greater for what we have built with this knowledge, says astrophysicist Adam Frank.
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Knowledge gained from science, in its most democratically practiced forms, will always be threatening to someone. We must be stalwart in our determination to pass the light forward, says Adam Frank.
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With the last of summer on our minds, it may be hard to get pumped up to think about deep issues like the politics of consumption on a finite planet, says Adam Frank. But what about thermodynamics?
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A new novel doesn't take the easy way out but, instead, asks questions about the mutations of human institutions under the pressure of global warming, says commentator Adam Frank.
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A road trip to Pluto is not something you want to try with kids — the asteroid belt is nothing but tourist traps, and the rest stops really thin out after Saturn, says astrophysicist Adam Frank.
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Commentator Adam Frank says robots capable of "living" are coming more quickly than most of us imagine — so we better get ready.
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If we learned we're the only ones looking into the night sky, it'd be impossibly lonely. But it might also mean there's something holding all beings from a higher state, which may spell our doom too.
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The breakdown of time, the time that has been pacing your life since your birth, was born through technology. Living by the clock has changed the way we view the world, says astrophysicist Adam Frank.
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Just as the development of a biosphere can imply new evolutionary paths for a planet, maybe the development of a planetary Noosphere has its own concrete evolutionary implications, says Adam Frank.