Physics News

In the Fall of 2011, Department of Mathematics and Physics proposed the initiation of a Physics Major. Institutional approval came swiftly, and the program of study will commence in Fall 2012, once all of the necessary steps have been approved and implemented. Provision has been made for students enrolled in Fall 2011 to participate.

EARTHSCOPE

Ave Maria University is hosting a seismometer for the Earthscope geophysics consortium. To view the last 24 hours (or so) of data collected, click here. For longer time-scale archived data, navigate through the options presented here.

Higgs Spotted?

The Higgs Boson, the final remaining piece of the minimal Standard Model of Particle Physics, may have been glimpsed at the LHC at CERN. Exciting developments are promised for 2012!

Classes

PHYS 362: Quantum Mechanics II, is one of the very few classes anywhere that could be better than Quantum Mechanics I!

Facilities

Physics lectures and laboratories are usually offered in The Saint Michael the Archangel Physics Laboratory located on the second-floor of the Henkels Academic Building. The undergraduate Physics labs are well-outfitted with basic equipment items. A workstation-server is primarily devoted to research in high-energy physics.

2011 Nobel Prize Awarded

This year's prize was awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess, for their collective work in observational cosmology, specifically the cataloging and classifying of high-Z supernovae. To the astonishment of the entire cosmology/astrophysics community, their data indicated an ongoing accelerating expansion of the universe! Until that time, it was the scientific concensus that the expansion of the universe was slowing down, and the question to be determined was whether the universe would expand forever post-big-bang, or eventually begin to contract and ultimately experience a "big-crunch."