Physics major Nik Narain has been obsessed with the brain since elementary school. “I’d spend most of my time either reading, researching, watching or creating videos about the brain,” he confesses. As a first-year student at Duke, Narain couldn’t decide which career to pursue: scientist or physician. He resolved the issue by taking the class he wanted in his rearview mirror the fastest: Fundamentals of Physics. That course changed his entire trajectory, and while Narain acknowledges that subjects like… read more about Mind, Matter & Visual Media »
"You have to be resilient to bounce back. There are always multiple pathways and multiple ways forward to shape your future.”Steffen Bass has a unique way to sell failure to students: "I ask them, ‘How many of you are still dating your childhood sweetheart?’ They seem to be able to take that ‘failure’ on the relationship side much easier than on the academic side."The physicist’s own academic journey has not been without its challenges, including setbacks in securing research grants early on in his career, and being… read more about Freedom to Fail: A Humbling Moment Paves the Way for Success »
Harold Baranger remembers his parents discussing physics at the dinner table, and his mother doodling Feynman diagrams during idle moments. Both his parents were theoretical physicists, his father at Carnegie Mellon and MIT and his mother at the University of Pittsburgh — a family setting that nourished his own fascination with science in general and physics in particular.Baranger, who is retiring in December 2024, grew up to become a successful theoretical physicist himself. After working for 13 years at Bell Labs in… read more about Theoretical Physics is a Family Business »
Ask Duke cosmologist Eve Vavagiakis what she does for a living, and her answer is deceptively humble: “I work on the guts of cameras, basically.”But the cameras she works on are designed for a special purpose: to take pictures of some of the oldest light in the universe. In her office on Duke’s West Campus, the newly arrived assistant professor of Physics showed off a snapshot of this ancient light, the faint glow left over from the Big Bang that gave birth to the cosmos more than 13 billion years ago.As she… read more about Looking for Remnants From the Beginning of Time »
Even those of us who aren’t physicists have an intuitive understanding of classical physics — we can predict what will happen when we throw a ball, use a salad spinner, or ease up on the gas pedal.But atomic and subatomic particles don’t follow these ordinary rules of reality. “It turns out that at really small scales there are a different set of rules called quantum physics,” said Travis Nicholson. “These rules are bizarre and interesting.” (Think Schrodinger’s cat and Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance.”)Nicholson is… read more about Probing the Quantum Nature of Reality »
Career trajectories can take many shapes: a steep upward slope, a meandering wave, a steady sequence of steps (let’s not even mention the possibility of a downfall). Glenn Edwards’ career was shaped like a perfect full circle. The Emeritus Professor of Physics joined Duke in 1999 as the director of the Free Electron Laser Laboratory, a facility housing an accelerator-based light source — an apparatus where electrically charged particles are propelled at very high speeds to generate a tunable laser beam. He… read more about A Full-Circle Career: Professor of Physics Glenn Edwards Retires After 25 Years at Duke »
DURHAM, N.C. -- How would it feel to peer into the night sky and behold millions of galaxies across a vast swath of space? What would it be like to hunt for worlds beyond our solar system, or spot the fiery deaths of stars? In the next few years, two U.S.-funded telescopes will allow astronomers to find out. But before that happens, a Duke researcher has been leading an effort, under a broader project called OpenUniverse, to create the most realistic preview yet of what they will see once the missions get underway. In… read more about Building a Prototype of the Cosmos »
The Center for Molecularly Optimized Networks (MONET) has won the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Horizon Prize. MONET is a National Sciences Foundation (NSF) Center that fosters collaboration between researchers nationwide. Under the direction of Stephen Craig, William T. Miller Professor of Chemistry, MONET’s goals are to better understand and improve upon the molecular properties of polymers. Michael Rubinstein, Aleksandar S. Vesic Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Physics, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Sciences… read more about MONET Center Wins Prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry Prize »
The Physics department celebrated its 2023-2024 graduates with a diploma ceremony on Sunday, May 12 at the Love Auditorium & Hall of Science, following Duke's main commencement event. The program included a celebratory lunch and a welcome address by Professor Steffen Bass, Chair of the Physics department. Following the welcome address, Professors Ayana Arce, Director of Undergraduate Studies, John Mercer, Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies and Mark Kruse, Director of Graduate Studies,… read more about Commencement 2023-2024 »
Next November, the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory will celebrate its 60th anniversary. It's among the longest running university-based nuclear physics laboratories in the U.S. and one of the most successful such laboratories in the world. I already knew of it when I was an undergraduate student at Tsinghua University in China in the 1980s because some of my professors collaborated with TUNL physicists. We have Henry Winston Newson to thank for that legacy. Prof. Henry Winston Newson, an accomplished physical… read more about Henry Newson Leaves a Legacy of Innovation and Institution Building »
Starting in Fall 2024, there’s a new sequence for Introductory Physics at Duke that will impact students in life sciences and prehealth programs who take physics as part of their degree paths. Physics 121 and 122 will be phased in to replace the current two-semester introductory sequence of Physics 141/142. Physics 121 and 122 differ from 141/142 by featuring a “math along the way” format where Math modules are built into the courses and calculus is not a prerequisite. The new sequence will also employ student-centered,… read more about New Introductory Physics Sequence Starting in Fall 2024 »
We like our summers in July and our snow in December. Leap Year ensures it remains that way, explains Duke physics professor Ronen Plesser in this short video. Plesser breaks down the math behind adding a day to the calendar every four years so that we remain in sync with the Earth’s rotation around the sun. The annual gap between the calendar year and the Earth's rotation “accumulates at the rate of one day every four years, and after a hundred years, you’re 25 days or a… read more about What Is So Special About Leap Year? »
The Duke chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has won an Outstanding Chapter Award from the SPS National Office. This designation is given to fewer than 10 percent of all SPS chapters at colleges and universities in the United States and internationally. The Society of Physics Students (SPS) is a professional association designed for students and membership is open to anyone interested in physics and related fields. SPS operates within the American Institute of Physics (AIP), an umbrella organization for… read more about Duke Physics Students Win National Recognition »
