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Wikipedia / MIT Department of Physics

The MIT Department of Physics has over 120 faculty members, is often cited as the largest physics department in the United States, and hosts top-ranked programs. It offers the SB, SM, PhD, and ScD degrees. Fourteen alumni of the department and nine current or former faculty members (two of whom were also students at MIT) have won the Nobel Prize in Physics.The Department of Physics was born when MIT founder William Barton Rogers proposed in 1865 to bring their Mens et Manus philosophy to life by creating a new laboratory of physics and mechanics in another department’s back room.

Academics

Undergraduate academics

There are two paths to earning a bachelor's degree (SB) in physics from MIT. The first, "Course 8 Focused Option", is for students intending to continue studying physics in graduate school. The track offers a rigorous education in various fields in fundamental physics including classical and quantum mechanics, statistical physics, general relativity, electrodynamics, and higher mathematics.

The second, "Course 8 Flexible Option" is designed for those students who would like to develop a strong background in physics but who would like to branch off into other research directions or more unconventional career paths, such as information theory, computer science, finance, and biophysics. A significant part of the student's third and fourth undergraduate years are left open for relevant electives and graduate classes, which then form a specialization. Both tracks have a strong emphasis on laboratory instruction, with the third year often reserved for two "Junior Lab" courses. Most students partaking in undergraduate research or a research-oriented internship.

Graduate academics

The department offers doctoral degrees in the following divisions: astrophysics, atomic and optical physics, biophysics, experimental condensed matter physics, theoretical condensed matter physics, experimental nuclear/particle physics, theoretical nuclear/particle physics, plasma physics, and quantum computing.

Research

The department is divided into four main research areas, namely a) astrophysics, b) atomic, biophysics, condensed matter, and plasma physics, c) experimental nuclear and particle physics, and d) theoretical nuclear and particle physics. A large amount of research is conducted the department's 17 affiliated labs and centers, a list which includes the Research Laboratory of Electronics, the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, the Center for Theoretical Physics, the Condensed Matter Theory Group, the MIT–Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and LIGO.

Notable faculty

The Nobel laureates in the faculty are:

Notable alumni

  1. See also for a longer list

  2. Nobel laureates

  3. Eric Cornell (PhD 1990), Bose–Einstein condensate

  4. Richard Feynman (SB 1939), quantum electrodynamics

  5. Murray Gell-Mann (PhD 1951), quarks

  6. Henry Kendall (PhD 1955), deep inelastic scattering

  7. Robert Laughlin (PhD 1979), fractional quantum Hall effect

  8. William D. Phillips (PhD 1976), laser cooling

  9. Burton Richter (SB 1952, PhD 1956), J/psi particle

  10. Adam Riess (SB 1992), high-Z supernova search team

  11. John Robert Schrieffer (SB 1953), BCS theory

  12. William Shockley (PhD 1936), transistor

  13. George Smoot (SB 1966, PhD 1970), cosmic microwave background radiation

  14. Carl E. Wieman (SB 1973), Bose–Einstein condensate

  15. Rainer Weiss (SB 1965, PhD 1962), LIGO

  16. Andrea Ghez (SB 1982), supermassive black hole in galaxy

  17. Other major physics discoveries

  18. Gerald Guralnik (SB 1958), Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson

  19. Carl Richard Hagen (SB & SM 1958, PhD 1962), Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson

  20. Breakthrough Prizes in Fundamental Physics

  21. Alan Guth (SB & SM 1969, PhD 1972), theory of inflation

  22. Cumrun Vafa (SB 1981), string theory

  23. Andrew Strominger (PhD 1982), string theory

  24. Charles L. Bennett (PhD 1984), WMAP

  25. Charles Kane (PhD 1989), topological insulators

  26. Eugene Mele (PhD 1978), topological insulators

  27. In government

  28. Solomon J. Buchsbaum (PhD 1957), chair of White House Science Council under Bush and Reagan

  29. Shirley Ann Jackson (SB 1968, PhD 1973), chair of US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, president of RPI, second black woman to earn a physics PhD in the U.S.

  30. Lucas Papademos (SB 1970), prime minister of Greece

  31. Astronauts

  32. Ronald McNair (PhD 1976), Challenger astronaut

  33. Jerome J. Apt (PhD 1976)

  34. John M. Grunsfeld (SB 1980)

  35. Timothy Creamer (SM 1992)

  36. Neil Woodward (SB 1984)

See also

References