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In 1884, a new physics laboratory opened
at Harvard, the first of its kind in the Nation. It was
based on the revolutionary idea that "the department
of physics in a University must embrace both teaching
and investigation" (John Trowbridge, 1877).
From those pioneering days and throughout the Department's long and illustrious history, its faculty and students have been engaged in groundbreaking research and standard-setting instruction, contributing importantly to Harvard's reputation as one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world. Among Harvard's 43 Nobel laureates, 10 are or were physics faculty members. Today, the latest generation of Harvard physicists continues to bring new insights into the exploration of fundamental problems involving physics at all length scales, and to provide outstanding and innovative educational opportunities to the many talented men and women who enroll in Harvard's flexible undergraduate and graduate programs.
From those pioneering days and throughout the Department's long and illustrious history, its faculty and students have been engaged in groundbreaking research and standard-setting instruction, contributing importantly to Harvard's reputation as one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world. Among Harvard's 43 Nobel laureates, 10 are or were physics faculty members. Today, the latest generation of Harvard physicists continues to bring new insights into the exploration of fundamental problems involving physics at all length scales, and to provide outstanding and innovative educational opportunities to the many talented men and women who enroll in Harvard's flexible undergraduate and graduate programs.
| Welcome, New and Returning Students! Please check your email for Physics department events. Incoming graduate students should check GSAS Welcome Events page for scheduled activities. |
Department News and Updates
| Prof. Cumrun Vafa was awarded the Dirac medal of the ICTP. |
The Abdus Salam
International Centre for Theoretical Physics awards the
Dirac Medal annually to scientists who have made significant
contributions to physics. |
| Harvard physics undergrads and design students from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan draw the science behind the blue sky... |
The exercise
was part of a continuing collaborative effort to improve
basic science education. This project, called Picturing
to Learn, is supported by a National Science
Foundation grant and also involves Duke University and
Roxbury Community College in Boston. Read the New
York Times article. |
| Save the dates (October 24-25, 2008): INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: 40 Years after Andrei Sakharov's "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom"; Russia Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. |
The Conference,
organized by the Sakharov Program on Human Rights & The
Cold War Studies Project at The
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies in
conjunciton with the Harvard Department of Physics, will
take place at the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences. Please consult the Conference
website for further information. |
| "Gelation of particles with short-range attraction" |
Harvard Physics
grad student Peter
Lu, Prof. David
Weitz, and colleagues from University of Rome and
University of Edinbourgh published a letter in Nature,
in which they reported on their study demonstrating that
gelation of short-ranged attractive particles is driven
by phase separation: P.J. Lu, E. Zaccarelli, F. Ciulla,
A.B. Schofield, F. Sciortino, & D.A. Weitz, Nature 453,
499-503 (22 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06931. |
| Prof. Roy Glauber was awarded the Gold Medal of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas... |
at a ceremony
in Madrid on April 22, 2008. It is the highest award
of Spain's new Ministry of Science. |
| Prof. Eric Mazur was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen). |
For
more news items, go to News
page For
recent faculty publications, go to Publications
page
To search for people in the Department, please go to People
page.
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