Physics Department

2008 Graduation Dinner

On April 22, we honored our graduating majors with a dinner at the faculty club (more)

added 4/23/08

FIU Joins the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC)

"FIU [...] educates more Hispanic students than any other institution in the country, and that diversity is reflected among FIU’s physics majors. Site leader Laird Kramer has built a thriving learning community within the department, and is now seeking to expand these efforts to include educating teachers." (read the full article here)

Science Debate 2008

Clinton is undecided. Obama and McCain both passed.

60-Second Science, Got a Minute?

added 04/16/08

Finding The Higgs Boson

Article in Physics News Update, the AIP Bulletin of Physics News discusses future potential for discovery at world's largest accelerator. This summer, five FIU students will work on the CMS project and some of them even travel to CERN. Learn more about FIU's High Energy Physics Group here.

added 04/16/08

Physicist John A. Wheeler Dies at 96

HIGHTSTOWN, N.J. (AP) — Physicist John A. Wheeler, who had a key role in the development of the atom bomb and later gave the space phenomenon black holes their name, has died at 96. (read the article at ap.google.com)

added 04/16/08

SPS wins "Club of the Year Award"

Society of Physics Students surprised the rest of the FIU community yesterday by winning the "Club of the Year Award" at the 2007-2008 Student Organizations Council End of the Year Banquet. (more)

added 04/04/08

First ever FIU Quantum Leap

Students and faculty walking on water, and this is no April Fools joke (more)

added 04/04/08

Here's Looking at You, Kid!

An article published by Drs. Richard Bone & Grenville Draper is featured in the Virtual Journal for Biomedical Optics (more)

added 03/19/08

Results of the 2008 Graduate Research Competition

1st: En Cai (advisor Dr. Jiandi Zhang)
2nd: Jiepeng Zhang (advisor Dr. Yifu Zhu)
(more)

added 03/19/08

Legal battle over sonar testing heats up

FIU Vice President for Academic Affairs Douglas Wartzok is cited in Physics Today (more)

added 02/25/08

The Protein Zipper

Biophysics group Profs. Chapagain & Gerstman and students Yanxin Liu & Jose L. Parra featured in Virtual Journal of Biological Physics. (more)

added 02/21/08

Spandex, it might not be like gravity ...

... but it brings us all closer together

Dr. Gary White, director of the National Society of Physics Students visits at FIU (more)

added 02/13/08

New FIU Astronomy Observatory for the Physics Department

Just before Christmas, the department welcomed a donation of $800,000 from a private donor for a new astronomy observatory. (more)

added 02/06/08

Particles Cling to Mass in the Nucleus

Dr. Rakhsha Nasseripour, our first Ph.D. graduate, is featured in Jefferson Lab news.

added 02/05/08

Quantum Leap

An event brought to you by the Society of Physics Students, featuring the most outrageous physics demonstrations in the history of our university.
When: On leap day, Friday, February 29, 2008.

added 01/28/08

FIU Faculty Werner Boeglin and Pete Markowitz co-author article featured in Physical Review Focus

Transparent Nuclei

Featuring the movie "A Pion is Born"

added 01/21/08

2008
The future has already arrived ...

added 01/01/08

We wish you all Happy Holidays

and in case you need something to do, why don't you elf a physicist.

added 12/26/07

US Fiscal Year 2008 Budget leaves funding for physical sciences short

Research conducted at the Department of Physics by students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty is funded by a large part by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Science at the Department of Energy, and the National Institutes of Health.

See for example:
A Budget too Small; Science, 12/18/07
Also, search for HR2764 at http://thomas.loc.gov/

added 12/20/07

Science Debate 2008

Case Western Reserve University physicist and author Lawrence Kraus helps organizing

A Call for a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology

added 12/14/07

Holiday Party a Big Success

added 12/07/07

Science in the News:

One Last Ride To Hubble
New York Times, Science Section, Tuesday, December 4, 2007.

Nobel Prize winner Carl Wieman weighs in on physics education:

The problem, he said, is that scientists stop acting like scientists when it comes to their own teaching.

(see the full Miami Herald article, Sun, Nov. 25, 2007.)

Not here at FIU. Learn about our own Physics Education Research Group (PERG)

Dr. Jiandi Zhang publishes in the prestigious Science journal:

A Surface-Tailored, Purely Electronic, Mott Metal-to-Insulator Transition
Science 26 October 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5850, pp. 615 - 619

DOI:10.1126/science.1145374