The asteroid was discovered on 9 March 1997, by Belgian astronomer Eric Walter Elst at ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile.
[6] In January 2011, a rotational lightcurve of Adamsmith was obtained from photometric observations by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California.
Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 10.9090 hours with a brightness variation of 0.48 magnitude (U=2).
Known for his works The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), he introduced the concept of the division of labour which represents a qualitative increase in productivity, and suggested that self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity.
[2] The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center 30 July 2007 (M.P.C.