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A&S honors 13 faculty with endowed professorships
The professorships are made possible because of gifts from alumni, parents and friends.
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Physics is an exciting, living, discipline that continually moves in new directions: biophysics, nanophysics, and experimental cosmology are all areas which did not exist until relatively recently. Some of the greatest challenges we now face, such as how to manage our dwindling resources of fossil fuels and how to control/mitigate global warming, require a deep understanding of physics. Additionally, with the recent turn-on of the Large Hadron Collider, we are on the threshold of a new era of particle physics.
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Academic Opportunities in Physics
Graduate Study
The graduate physics program at Cornell is multidisciplinary, broad and congenial, and has access to superb facilities. Explore the links below to learn more.
Undergraduate Study
Studying physics at Cornell is a gateway to your future. For our alumni, a degree from Cornell has opened doors to employment with companies like Apple, careers in law, and research and faculty positions across the globe. Our combination of first-class research facilities and congenial atmosphere provide our students with the best environment to learn theoretical and experimental physics. At Cornell there is no need to limit yourself to coursework within our department. Many of our students choose to expand their education with coursework and research in complementary fields like Astronomy, Engineering, Biology and Computer Science.
Physics News
Better basketball through theoretical physics?
A Cornell research team has employed a variation of a theory first used to predict the collective actions of electrons in quantum mechanical systems to a much taller, human system – the National Basketball Association.
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One tiny particle could complicate predictions of physics theorists
The international, interdisciplinary team measured the magnetic anomaly of the muon – a tiny, elusive particle that could have very big implications for understanding the subatomic world.
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Cornell STEM education expert weighs in on NSF funding cuts
"Students across the country are going to miss out on innovative improvements to their science education – innovations that would have critically prepared them for the competitive 21st century technological workforce."
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'I'm proud of my contributions to understanding the stability of insect flight'
Owen Wetherbee is a physics, mathematics & computer science major.
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Klarman Fellow honored for outstanding achievement in physics
Paul Malinowski received the 2025 Martin and Beate Block Winter Award from the Aspen Center for Physics.
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Don Hartill, longtime physics professor, Lansing mayor, dies at 86
Donald Hartill, a professor of physics emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences and a driving force behind decades of experimental research in particle physics, died on April 16. He was 86.
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