Short answers, pulled from the story.
Adam Smith was a Scottish economist and philosopher, baptised in 1723 and died on the 17th of July 1790, and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. He is called the father of economics and the father of capitalism because his book The Wealth of Nations marked the inception of modern economic scholarship as a comprehensive system and academic discipline.
Adam Smith is primarily known for two works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759, and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. He also left posthumous works including Essays on Philosophical Subjects in 1795 and Lectures on Jurisprudence.
The invisible hand is Adam Smith's idea that a person pursuing his own gain is led to promote an end that was no part of his intention, often benefiting society as a whole. The phrase appears only once in The Wealth of Nations, in Book IV, Chapter II.
Adam Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in Fife, Scotland, two months after his father died. He studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson at the University of Glasgow and later attended Balliol College at the University of Oxford under the Snell Exhibition.
Adam Smith found Oxford intellectually stifling and wrote that most of its professors had given up even the pretence of teaching. Officials once confiscated his copy of David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature and punished him, and he left in 1746 before his scholarship ended.
Adam Smith laid the foundations of classical free-market economic theory, but writers such as Herbert Stein argue his support for laissez-faire has been overstated. He warned of business conspiracies to raise prices and held that government should provide public education, national defence, a justice system, and public infrastructure.
Adam Smith was described as comically absent-minded, known to talk to himself and smile at invisible companions. He once walked into a tanning pit while discussing free trade, and on another occasion wandered 15 miles outside town in his nightgown before church bells brought him back.