New course sets sail on understanding physics–by boat
Students venture out onto Cayuga Lake for hands-on learning about wind speed, velocity, buoyancy, and more
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The Cornell University Department of Physics, known for the versatility of its program, the breadth of its training, and Nobel Prize-winning work, is unsurpassed in many areas. The presence on campus of a particle accelerator, one of just a few of its magnitude anywhere in the world, contributes to Cornell’s reputation in particle and accelerator physics. The department has more than 40 active professors, approximately 180 graduate students and 65 undergraduate majors, and offers a full range of university-level work in physics, from general education courses for nonscientists to doctoral-level independent research.
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Physics Events
Nov
25
Monday
04:00 PM
Department of Physics Colloquium, Professor Lionel Levine
Rockefeller Hall
201, Schwartz Auditorium
Dec
02
Monday
04:00 PM
Department of Physics Colloquium, Professor Yuta Michimura
Rockefeller Hall
201, Schwartz Auditorium
The Bethe Way: Department of Physics Magazine
The Bethe Way is the department's yearly magazine. In it, we share exciting highlights of faculty hires, research breakthroughs, staff changes, teaching reform, faculty awards, and alumni connections.
Physics News
Revealing the superconducting limit of ‘magic’ material
Cornell researchers have identified the highest achievable superconducting temperature of graphene – 60 Kelvin. The finding is mathematically exact and is spurring new insights into the factors that fundamentally control superconductivity.
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Physicist Yuval Grossman elected to American Physical Society
Yuval Grossman, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society for seminal contributions in “flavor” physics.
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Two-day ‘LepageFest’ honors physicist and former dean of A&S
The conference focused on the current status and future of heavy quark physics while highlighting the science Lepage has done throughout his career.
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Student spotlight: Elijah Sheridan
Elijah Sheridan, a doctoral student in physics from Lansing, Michigan, studies string theory under the guidance of Liam McAllister at Cornell.
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John Hopfield, Ph.D. ’58, wins Nobel Prize in physics 
Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto were honored for their work in training artificial neural networks.
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Leading particle physicist headlines fall 2024 Bethe Lectures
Beate Heinemann, professor at Universität Hamburg and director for particle physics at DESY in Germany, will share the stories of two outstanding women scientists in a public lecture.
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Indie drama depicts Cornellian couple's role in web history
Set in the 1980s, The Man Who Saved the Internet with a Sunflower chronicles two ’69 classmates in Silicon Valley
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"On my first day after joining a research group in graduate school a professor said, I hear you’re interested in instrumentation.’ I didn’t know what that was, but I thought I’d better say yes. When people think about physics, they think about a guy with a pencil and paper, but physics is an experimental science.”
- Peter Wittich, Professor and Director, Laboratory of Elementary Particle Physics