welcome ...
h i g h l i g h t
to the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The department traces its roots to pre-revolutionary times when it was a Department of Natural Philosophy. The department is housed in David Rittenhouse Laboratory, named after David Rittenhouse, FRS, a faculty member and trustee who served as Franklin's successor to the presidency of the American Philosophical Society.
recent news:
Fay Ajzenberg-Selove receives the 2007 National Medal of Science
for her contributions to nuclear physics. She is one of eight recipients of the Medal, the nations highest honor for science.
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- Tom Lubensky, Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Mary Amanda Wood Professor of Physics. Made fundamental contributions to solid state and soft condensed matter physics, an area he helped found. Studies of fluctuations near phase transitions influenced the modern theory of critical phenomena. Insights into broken symmetry led to many novel phases of matter.
Jim Cronin, co-recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics, gave the 10th Selove Lecture on Wednesday, April 16. Cronin presented the latest exciting results from the Pierre Auger Observatory on the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays. There was also a seminar on Thursday, April 17, again at 4pm in DRL A-8.
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On Thursday, April 17, the department hosted a symposium in honor of the 2008 Franklin Medallist, Deborah Jin, who is being honored for her work on the quantum properties of ultra-cold gases of fermionic atoms. The symposium focused on the Bose condensation (BEC) of bosonic molecules of fermionic atoms, the BCS condensation of fermionic atoms and the crossover from BEC to BCS. There where four speakers, including Dr. Jin.
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- Carl Modes, who works with Prof. Randall Kamien, was named as one of the finalists for the American Physical Society's Group on Statistical and Nonlinear Physics (GSNP) student prize for 2008.
- Prof. Burt Ovrut
and his collaborators' work on "Ekpyrotic Cosmology" was the focus of an article entitled "New Beginnings" in the October, 2007 issue of Scientific American. « read more »
- Prof. Mirjam Cvetic
recipient of 2007 Distinguished Alumni Award for the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Maryland.
- Dr. Paulo Arratia
who works with Prof. Doug Durian and Prof. Jerry Gollub (Haverford College) has won the first prize for his video in the APS March meeting competition.
- Prof. Andrea Liu
Balancing family and physics careers at the Americal Physical Society March Meeting in Denver.