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Physics, often said to be the most fundamental of all the sciences, deals with the constituents, properties, and evolution of the entire universe, on all length and time scales.

The Department of Applied Physics is dedicated to educating each new generation and preparing them to explore the practical uses and applications of physics.

If you’re interested in bridging the gap between pure physics and engineering and learning how knowledge of condensed matter and quantum mechanics are changing the world, Applied Physics might be the course of study for you.

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Applied Physics, B.S.

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in Applied Physics and Quantum Technology

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History of the New York University Physics Department

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

We trace the history of physics at New York University after its founding in 1831, focusing especially on its relatively recent history, which can be divided into five periods: the Gregory Breit period from 1929 to 1934; the prewar period from 1935 to 1941; the wartime period from 1942 to 1945; the postwar period from around 1961 to 1973 when several semiautonomous physics departments were united into a single all-university department under a single head; and after 1973 when the University Heights campus was sold to New York City and its physics department joined the one at the Washington Square campus. For each of these periods we comment on the careers and work of prominent members of the physics faculty and on some of the outstanding graduate students who later went on to distinguished careers at NYU and elsewhere.

• Alfred Lee Loomis
• Allan C.G. Mitchell
• Allen V. Astin
• Arthur Roberts
• Bruno Zumino
• Clifford G. Shull
• Daniel Webster Hering
• David B. Douglass
• Edward O. Salant
• Elias Loomis
• Eugene Feenberg
• Francis A. Jenkins
• Francis Wheeler Loomis
• Frederick Reines
• Gerald Goertzel
• Gregory Breit
• Hartmut Kallmann
• Henry Draper
• Henry Primakoff
• Henry Vethade
• James Arthur Lectures
• James M. Mathews
• Jenny Rosenthal Bramley
• John A. Simpson
• John A. Wheeler
• John C. Draper
• John C. Hubbard
• John H. Van Vleck
• John William Draper
• Louis P. Granath
• Morton Hamermesh
• New York University
• Norman Hilberry
• Otto Halpern
• Richard T. Cox
• Robert S. Mulliken
• Robert W. Wood
• Samuel F.B. Morse
• Serge Korff
• Stanley H. Klosk Lectures
• Theodore Holstein
• University Heights campus
• Washington Square campus
• history of physics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

• General Physics and Astronomy

Access to Document

• 10.1007/s00016-011-0056-7

Other files and links

• Link to publication in Scopus
• Link to the citations in Scopus

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• Physics Arts & Humanities 100%
• histories Physics & Astronomy 72%
• Campus Arts & Humanities 64%
• Gregory Breit Arts & Humanities 61%
• History Arts & Humanities 60%
• physics Physics & Astronomy 55%
• History of Physics Arts & Humanities 40%
• Graduate Students Arts & Humanities 32%

T1 - History of the New York University Physics Department

AU - Bederson, Benjamin

AU - Stroke, H. Henry

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Roger H. Stuewer for his invaluable help in organizing the final version of our paper. We thank the NYU archivist Nancy Cricco for her help in providing access to the (sparse) information contained in the university archives. Thanks are also due to Nancy Greenberg, former Director of Sponsored Programs, for supplying us with some useful old records. We thank Peter Levy for a critical reading of the manuscript, and Dan Zwanziger for his help in getting the project started. Finally, we thank the Physics Department and its Chair, David Grier, for financial assistance. Funding Information: Korff’s Counter Project and Cosmic Ray Project attracted numerous students to NYU; many later achieved prominence as physicists. The project also brought the university substantial funding from government agencies, such as the National Air and Space Agency and the National Science Foundation. Author of over 150 scientific papers and books, as well as a number of works on exploration, geology and stamps, Korff’s contributions to science went beyond the study of cosmic rays…. Funding Information: An important ingredient in this process was the initiative the physics faculty took toward self-governance. Within the overall financial constraints imposed on the department by the University, matters of faculty appointments, tenure, educational and internal funding allocations (particularly of the NSF Development Grant), salaries, and duties, were determined by an elected Executive Council. A parallel Experimental Research Council with an appropriate charge was also established. This openness has served the department well, by now for over four decades.

PY - 2011/9

Y1 - 2011/9

N2 - We trace the history of physics at New York University after its founding in 1831, focusing especially on its relatively recent history, which can be divided into five periods: the Gregory Breit period from 1929 to 1934; the prewar period from 1935 to 1941; the wartime period from 1942 to 1945; the postwar period from around 1961 to 1973 when several semiautonomous physics departments were united into a single all-university department under a single head; and after 1973 when the University Heights campus was sold to New York City and its physics department joined the one at the Washington Square campus. For each of these periods we comment on the careers and work of prominent members of the physics faculty and on some of the outstanding graduate students who later went on to distinguished careers at NYU and elsewhere.

AB - We trace the history of physics at New York University after its founding in 1831, focusing especially on its relatively recent history, which can be divided into five periods: the Gregory Breit period from 1929 to 1934; the prewar period from 1935 to 1941; the wartime period from 1942 to 1945; the postwar period from around 1961 to 1973 when several semiautonomous physics departments were united into a single all-university department under a single head; and after 1973 when the University Heights campus was sold to New York City and its physics department joined the one at the Washington Square campus. For each of these periods we comment on the careers and work of prominent members of the physics faculty and on some of the outstanding graduate students who later went on to distinguished careers at NYU and elsewhere.

KW - Alfred Lee Loomis

KW - Allan C.G. Mitchell

KW - Allen V. Astin

KW - Arthur Roberts

KW - Bruno Zumino

KW - Clifford G. Shull

KW - Daniel Webster Hering

KW - David B. Douglass

KW - Edward O. Salant

KW - Elias Loomis

KW - Eugene Feenberg

KW - Francis A. Jenkins

KW - Francis Wheeler Loomis

KW - Frederick Reines

KW - Gerald Goertzel

KW - Gregory Breit

KW - Hartmut Kallmann

KW - Henry Draper

KW - Henry Primakoff

KW - Henry Vethade

KW - James Arthur Lectures

KW - James M. Mathews

KW - Jenny Rosenthal Bramley

KW - John A. Simpson

KW - John A. Wheeler

KW - John C. Draper

KW - John C. Hubbard

KW - John H. Van Vleck

KW - John William Draper

KW - Louis P. Granath

KW - Morton Hamermesh

KW - New York University

KW - Norman Hilberry

KW - Otto Halpern

KW - Richard T. Cox

KW - Robert S. Mulliken

KW - Robert W. Wood

KW - Samuel F.B. Morse

KW - Serge Korff

KW - Stanley H. Klosk Lectures

KW - Theodore Holstein

KW - University Heights campus

KW - Washington Square campus

KW - history of physics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80051610551&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=80051610551&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s00016-011-0056-7

DO - 10.1007/s00016-011-0056-7

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:80051610551

SN - 1422-6944

JO - Physics in Perspective

JF - Physics in Perspective

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The Other Side of Entropy

Following its inception in the mid-19th century, our understanding of thermodynamic entropy has undergone many revisions, most notably through the development of microscopic descriptions by Boltzmann and Gibbs, which led to a deep understanding of equilibrium thermodynamics. The role of entropy has since moved beyond the traditional boundaries of equilibrium thermodynamics, towards problems for which the development of a statistical mechanical theory seems plausible but the a-priori probabilities of states are not known, making the definition and calculation of entropy-like quantities challenging. In this talk, we will discuss two new classes of methods that enable these computations: one based on pattern matching ideas from information theory, and the other based on basin volume calculations. These approaches provide us with very general frameworks for computing entropy, density of states, and entropy production in systems far from equilibrium. We will discuss applications of these ideas to a variety of contexts: from granular systems, to absorbing-state models, to active matter, in simulations and in experiments. Throughout the talk, I will highlight challenges and promising future directions for these measurements.

Department of Physics

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Applied Physics Seminar with Hong Tang Postponed

• Calendar / Outlook

Please note - this seminar has been postponed. It will be rescheduled at a later day. Speaker: Hong Tang , Professor of Electrical Engineering, Physics and Applied Physics, Yale Quantum Institute, Yale University  Title: Superconducting photonic circuits for quantum frequency conversion and cryogenic data links Abstract: Superconducting and photonic circuits are among the most advanced platforms for quantum information processing. However, superconductivity and optics are incompatible in many aspects as superconductors could absorb photons and optical excitations are known to lead to excess microwave noises. I will present an ongoing effort at Yale that brings superconductivity and optics on a single chip platform, which enables new functions including ultrasensitive photon-number resolved detectors, efficient microwave-to-optical converters for quantum networks, and superconducting electro-optic modulators for cryogenic data links. Bio: Hong Tang is the Llewellyn West Jones, Jr. Professor of Electrical Engineering, Physics and Applied Physics at Yale University. His research utilizes integrated photonic circuits to study photon-photon, photon-mechanics and photon-spin interactions as well as quantum photonics involving microwave and optical photons. He has been on Yale faculty since 2006. He is a recipient of Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering.

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Yale professor accuses columbia prez shafik of plagiarism, ‘intellectual theft’ in resurfaced 1994 research paper.

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Embattled Columbia University president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik screwed a former underling out of credit on a research paper published 30 years ago, a Yale University professor claims.

Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak posted the bombshell allegations in a blistering thread on X early Friday, juxtaposing images of a 1992 report Shafik co-authored for World Bank with researcher Sushenjit Bandyopadhyay, along with a journal published in Oxford Economic Papers two years later in which Bandyopadhyay’s name was removed.

Mobarak, an economics and management professor at Yale, told The Post the findings and research cited in both papers are pretty much equal.

“It got rewritten, but fundamentally it’s the same paper,” he alleged.

“We can’t get in the room and [learn] what sentences did he write and what sentences she wrote, but what we do know is his contribution was sufficient to warrant co-authorship [in 1992],” he added. “What is not common is for someone to be a co-author and then suddenly their name is taken off.”

Instead, Bandyopadhyay is only “thanked” in an acknowledgement section in the back of the 1994 published journal — which screams of “power asymmetry” considering Shafik was then Bandyopadhyay’s boss, alleged Mobarak.

Bandyopadhyay declined comment when asked whether he felt slighted.

However, Mobarak, also a former World Bank consultant and University of Maryland graduate, said he spoke to Bandyopadhyay about the issue and that Bandyopadhyay believes he should have been credited as a co-author in the second paper. The professor conceded Bandyopadhyay never said anything “negative” about the Columbia president.

“This [1994] paper is lifted almost entirely from a 1992 report coauthored with consultant not credited in the publication,” wrote Mobarak on X. “This is wholesale intellectual theft, not subtle plagiarism.”

At the time both papers were written, Shafik was a vice president for World Bank and Bandyopadhyay, a consultant who also attended the University of Maryland.

Mobarak’s allegations echo plagiarism accusations leveled against former Harvard University president Claudine Gay, who eventually resigned in disgrace in January .

Columbia University spokesperson Ben Chang shot down the Yale professor’s claims, saying “this is an absurd attempt at running a well-known playbook, and it has no credibility.”

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CWU physics professor, students join national eclipse research project

April 24, 2024

David Leder

A Central Washington University physics professor and a group of her students road-tripped across the country earlier this month to conduct research into the solar eclipse that captivated the entire world.

Dr. Darci Snowden and CWU students Eli Pugsley, Elizabeth Tanner, Joseph Gabriel Burke, Matthew Ryan, Micheal Allen, Alexander Hardiman, and John Richins traveled to Will Point, Texas, where they sent dozens of weather balloons into the atmosphere to capture data and learn how the atmosphere changed during the eclipse.

The cross-country trip also included a visit to the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to compete in a rocketry competition.

In Texas, the team launched weather balloons capable of flying up to 20 miles into the stratosphere, carrying battery-powered instruments to collect data on temperature, humidity, and pressure, plus wind direction and speed.

Snowden and Pugsley attended a workshop at the University of Idaho last spring to learn about the equipment — 70 weather balloons and a weather station — and then brought it back to Ellensburg to test it out. Pugsley, Tanner, and Anandan Lakshminarayanan worked throughout last summer to become experts on the equipment and prepare for the April 8 eclipse.

The Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project is a national effort led by Montana State University and funded by NASA’s Science Activation Program. CWU was one of 53 teams that participated. Snowden applied to be part of the project in October 2022, and worked on a similar project, also led by Montana State, for the 2017 eclipse.

The CWU physics team stayed at Lake Tawakoni in Texas, located in the center of the path of totality. Snowden said her team had mixed results due to the cloud cover, but overall, the experience was overwhelmingly positive.

“We had 30 successful weather balloon flights, and had fairly good weather,” she said. “It was cloudy most of eclipse day, but it cleared up during the partial phase, then clouded up again right before totality. However, there were gaps and light patches of clouds, so we were still able to see the sun's corona.”

The CWU group received a warm reception from the locals, who came out to watch the eclipse and observe their research.

“One of them had a pretty fancy telescope that took some nice images,” Snowden added. “There were a lot of bugs, birds, and turtles around, and they all reacted to the sudden darkness.”

The team will analyze the data over the next year, in collaboration with the other teams from the national project. The CWU students will be presenting their research at the upcoming SOURCE conference May 16-17.

Snowden participated in a similar project last fall, joining 10 of her Gateway to Space students to conduce the first field campaign in Oregon during the annular eclipse. That group also launched 30 balloons — one every hour for 30 hours, starting 24 hours before totality. She and her students are currently analyzing the data from the annular eclipse.

CWU defensive standout presented with coveted national award

by David Leder

• [email protected]

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