Earnest Dwight Adams
Earnest Dwight Adams was born in Carroll County, Georgia, in 1933. After graduating from Mount Zion High School in 1949 he enrolled at Berry College, majoring in physics and mathematics and graduating summa cum laude in 1953. He obtained his master’s degree in 1954 from Emory University and was drafted into the Army, serving two years at Fort Dietrich, Maryland. He obtained his PhD in 1960 in low temperature physics from Duke University, where he studied under William Fairbank. Adams went to Stanford University for postdoctoral research under Fairbank, who had moved there from Duke. While at Stanford, Adams invented the persistent switch for superconducting magnets that makes it possible for MRIs and other magnets to operate without large power inputs.
In 1962 Adams became assistant professor at the University of Florida, associate professor in 1967, and professor in 1970. One of his earliest achievements was development, with Gerald Straty, his first PhD student, of a highly sensitive device for measuring pressures in situ at low temperatures. The Straty–Adams gauge has been adopted worldwide, and several of the original gauges are now in the Smithsonian Institution.
Adams and his graduate student Richard Scribner used the gauge to study the melting pressure of solid helium-3, which they suggested for ultralow-temperature thermometry. Adams, PhD student Wenhai Ni, and colleagues continued research on melting pressure thermometry, performing the measurements necessary to establish it as a standard thermometer. In 2000, 3He melting pressure was adopted by the International Committee on Weights and Measures as the standard, PLTS 2000, for defining temperatures to below 0.009 K, almost 1000 times lower than had been previously possible.
In 1985 Adams and two colleagues obtained a $2 million grant from NSF and established the Microkelvin Research Laboratory, where he was its first director and principal investigator. The laboratory is the largest ultralow-temperature laboratory in the world and the only one if its kind in the US. It achieves temperatures near absolute zero, far colder than any in nature.
Adams spent sabbaticals at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, Nagoya University, University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and Hahn-Meitner Institute Berlin. He was recognized as one of the world’s experts on the magnetism of solid 3He. He wrote over 150 scientific papers, including ones in scientific encyclopedias, and was coeditor of two books. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1972, received the Jesse W. Beams Research Award from APS in 1978, and was recognized in 1986 as Outstanding Florida Scientist by the Florida Academy of Sciences. In 2005 he received the Joseph F. Keithley Award for Advances in Measurement Science from APS with the citation: “For the pioneering development of the capacitive pressure transducer, its application to the helium-3 melting pressure thermometry, and other scientific uses.” Adams was influential in recruiting many faculty to the Physics Department at the University of Florida, particularly in condensed-matter research.
In addition to his career in physics, Adams was devoted to environmental and public interest matters. He was a state and national leader in promoting recycling, waste reduction, and energy conservation and chaired the Sierra Club’s national committee on solid wastes; his other primary environmental interest was land use planning and development. As the legislative liaison of the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club, he pushed for stronger environmental protections throughout the state. Adams also led efforts to establish the first curbside recycling, yard waste collection, and volume-based waste collection programs in Florida. In 1990 he received the Land Conservationist of the Year award from the National Wildlife Federation for his successful efforts to encourage responsible development in Florida; he also received numerous awards from the Sierra Club.
He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Joan Adams; children, Lowell Patrick Adams (Cathy Wilson); Darrell Adams (Kelly Moore); Douglas Adams (Amando Navar); and granddaughter, Anna Adams.
