Robert Kemp Adair (August 14, 1924 – September 28, 2020) was an American physicist. He latterly held the position of

Sterling Professor Sterling Professor, the highest academic rank at Yale University, is awarded to a Academic tenure in North America, tenured faculty member considered the best in their field. It is akin to the rank of distinguished professor at other universities. ...

Emeritus of

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Biography

Adair served in the European theatre after volunteering for World War II and was awarded a

Purple Heart The Purple Heart (PH) is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the president to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after 5 April 1917, with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, ...

and

Bronze star The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

. After achieving a doctorate in experimental nuclear physics at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

he worked at

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, a hamlet of the Brookhaven, New York, Town of Brookhaven. It w ...

(BNL) in Long Island. In 1959 he joined the faculty at Yale, serving as chair of the Department of Physics and director of the Division of Physical Sciences. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1976 where he served as Chairman of the Physics Section 1986-1989 and Chairman of the Class of Physical Sciences 1991–1994. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1997, after a distinguished career in, among many other subfields of physics, weak-interaction (

Kaon In particle physics, a kaon, also called a K meson and denoted , is any of a group of four mesons distinguished by a quantum number called strangeness. In the quark model they are understood to be bound states of a strange quark (or antiquark ...

) physics at the

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron The Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) is a particle accelerator located at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York, United States. The Alternating Gradient Synchrotron was built on the innovative concept of the alternat ...

(AGS) at BNL. Later, in his retirement, he studied the effects of

extremely low frequency Extremely low frequency (ELF) is the ITU designation for electromagnetic radiation (radio waves) with frequencies from 3 to 30 Hz, and corresponding wavelengths of 100,000 to 10,000 kilometers, respectively. In atmospheric sc ...

(weak) electromagnetic fields on human health and among other responsibilities, served on the Committee of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

(APS) established to investigate the APS Statement on Global Warming in 2007, which was not without its own internal controversy. He died in September 2020 at the age of 96.Robert K. Adair obituary
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Books and baseball

Adair, a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

, was known for authoring '' The Physics of Baseball'' as well as a paper titled ''The Crack of the Bat: The Acoustics of the Bat Hitting the Ball''. His studies into baseball stemmed from a request from former Yale President A. Bartlett Giamatti to better characterize the scientific significance of corking a bat, wetting a ball and other similar baseball established practices. Many of the table top experiments which provided the observational facts which formed the basis for Adair's conclusions about the physics of baseball were performed by his longtime technical laboratory expert within the

Physics Department, Richard Larsen, who also contributed significantly to much of Adair's Yale-led experimental programme at the BNL AGS. Another publication from Adair is ''The Great Design: Particles, Fields and Creation''.

Biography

Books and baseball

References

External links