以表彰他一生对理论天文学的杰出贡献。
徐遐生(Frank H Shu) 对天文学的贡献颇多，尤以恒星形成学说见称。自古以来，人类一直对天上无数闪烁的星星存著好奇。人类想知道星星是什么？它们在自然界壮观秩序中有何地位？人类更要了解星星的起源，更想探索星星对我们存在的意义。尽管最近的天文研究有所突破，表明宇宙绝大多数物质成分是暗物质和暗能量，但恒星依然是组成星系的基本单元、是从最遥远的宇宙到最邻近世界的可见光波段能量来源、是生命不可缺少及行星栖息所需的各种复杂化学元素的来源。人们必须彻底了解恒星的形成，才可以考究太阳系的形成，并在星系及更大尺度去根查整个体系的诞生。
按照传统的概念，科学家一直以为恒星是从致密的星际气体云，经过冷却，受自身引力影响而塌缩形成的。这种模型很理想化，在过去二十多年，受到了观测发现的挑战。天文学家利用高精度、大口径地面望远镜，以及哈勃太空望远镜等，特别重要的是太空红外探测器，穿透地球大气层，直接观测到恒星诞生的地方，从而理解，恒星产生的环境其实非常复杂，计有：湍动的气体、无序的磁场以及从新形成的恒星喷出的气流。
In a career that spans forty-five years, Professor Frank H Shu has spurred fundamental changes in the existing paradigms of three different fields of astrophysics: galactic dynamics, stellar evolution, and the astrophysics of small bodies in the solar system.
Shu’s research career began auspiciously in 1964 with the publication, together with his adviser C C Lin, on the density-wave theory of spiral structure in disk galaxies. Although highly controversial at its inception, this theory has since gathered widespread observational support and computational elaboration. The philosophy that useful theories must be testable has informed all of his subsequent research. Shu has been at the forefront of theoretical developments, particularly with his group’s semi-analytical investigations of the nonlinear, non-ideal theory as applied to galactic shocks in the 1970s and resonantly forced analogues in Saturn’s rings in the 1980s.
