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 A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

, 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 Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...

.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 A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

(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 Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

statistical physics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. Sometimes called statistical physics or statistical thermodynamics, its applicati ...

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

electrodynamics In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge via electromagnetic fields. The electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. It is the dominant force in the interacti ...

, 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
astrophysicsbiophysicstheoretical condensed matter physicsexperimental nuclear/particle physics
theoretical nuclear/particle physics,

plasma physics Plasma () is a state of matter characterized by the presence of a significant portion of charged particles in any combination of ions or electrons. It is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the universe, mostly in stars (including th ...

, an
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 The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Prior to LIG ...

Notable faculty

The Nobel laureates in the faculty are: *

Charles Townes Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated with b ...

(1964) * Samuel C.C. Ting (1976) *

Steven Weinberg Steven Weinberg (; May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic inter ...

(1979) * Jerome I. Friedman (1990) * Henry Kendall (1990) *

Clifford Shull Clifford Glenwood Shull (September 23, 1915 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – March 31, 2001) was an American physicist. Biography Shull attended Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, received his BS from Carnegie Institute of Technology and PhD fro ...

(1994) *

Wolfgang Ketterle Wolfgang Ketterle (; born 21 October 1957) is a German physicist and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research has focused on experiments that trap and cool atoms to temperatures close to absolute zer ...

(2001) *

Frank Wilczek Frank Anthony Wilczek ( or ; born May 15, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and Nobel laureate. He is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Director ...

(2004) *

Rainer Weiss Rainer "Rai" Weiss ( , ; born September 29, 1932) is a German-American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitation, gravitational physics and astrophysics. He is a professor of physics emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

(2017) *

Notable alumni

:''See also for a longer list'' ;Nobel laureates *

Eric Cornell Eric Allin Cornell (born December 19, 1961) is an American physicist who, along with Carl E. Wieman, was able to synthesize the first Bose–Einstein condensate in 1995. For their efforts, Cornell, Wieman, and Wolfgang Ketterle shared the Nobe ...

(PhD 1990), Bose–Einstein condensate *

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of t ...

(SB 1939), quantum electrodynamics *

Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the funda ...

(PhD 1951), quarks * Henry Kendall (PhD 1955), deep inelastic scattering * Robert Laughlin (PhD 1979), fractional quantum Hall effect *

William D. Phillips William Daniel Phillips (born November 5, 1948) is an American physicist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 with Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji. Biography Phillips was born on November 5, 1948, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to ...

(PhD 1976), laser cooling *

Burton Richter Burton Richter (March 22, 1931 – July 18, 2018) was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by S ...

(SB 1952, PhD 1956), J/psi particle *

Adam Riess Adam Guy Riess (born December 16, 1969) is an American astrophysicist and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute. He is known for his research in using supernovae as cosmological ...

(SB 1992), high-Z supernova search team *

John Robert Schrieffer John Robert Schrieffer (; May 31, 1931 – July 27, 2019) was an American physicist who, with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper, was a recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the BCS theory, the first successful quantum theo ...

(SB 1953), BCS theory *

William Shockley William Bradford Shockley ( ; February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American solid-state physicist, electrical engineer, and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brat ...

(PhD 1936), transistor * George Smoot (SB 1966, PhD 1970), cosmic microwave background radiation * Carl E. Wieman (SB 1973), Bose–Einstein condensate *

(SB 1965, PhD 1962), LIGO *

Andrea Ghez Andrea Mia Ghez (born June 16, 1965) is an American astrophysicist, Nobel laureate, and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine chair in Astrophysics, at the University of California ...

(SB 1982), supermassive black hole in galaxy ;Other major physics discoveries *

Gerald Guralnik Gerald Stanford "Gerry" Guralnik (; September 17, 1936 – April 26, 2014) was the Chancellor’s Professor of Physics at Brown University. In 1964, he co-discovered the Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson with C. R. Hagen and Tom Kibble (GHK). As ...

(SB 1958),

Higgs mechanism In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the Mass generation, generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles ...

and

Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the excited state, quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the field (physics), fields in particl ...

* Carl Richard Hagen (SB & SM 1958, PhD 1962),

and

;Breakthrough Prizes in Fundamental Physics *

Alan Guth Alan Harvey Guth (; born February 27, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who is the Victor Weisskopf Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Along with Alexei Starobinsky and Andrei Linde, ...

(SB & SM 1969, PhD 1972), theory of

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the average price of goods and services in terms of money. This increase is measured using a price index, typically a consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of curre ...

Cumrun Vafa Cumrun Vafa (, ; born 1 August 1960) is an Iranian-American theoretical physicist and the Hollis Professor of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy at Harvard University. Early life and education Cumrun Vafa was born in Tehran, Iran on 1 August 1 ...

(SB 1981), string theory *

Andrew Strominger Andrew Eben Strominger (; born 1955) is an American theoretical physicist who is the director of Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. He has made significant contributions to quantum gravity and string theory. These include his ...

(PhD 1982), string theory * Charles L. Bennett (PhD 1984),

WMAP The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), originally known as the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP and Explorer 80), was a NASA spacecraft operating from 2001 to 2010 which measured temperature differences across the sky in the cosmic mic ...

* Charles Kane (PhD 1989),

topological insulator A topological insulator is a material whose interior behaves as an electrical insulator while its surface behaves as an electrical conductor, meaning that electrons can only move along the surface of the material. A topological insulator is an ...

s * Eugene Mele (PhD 1978), topological insulators ;In government * Solomon J. Buchsbaum (PhD 1957), chair of White House Science Council under Bush and Reagan * 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. *

Lucas Papademos Lucas Demetrios Papademos (; born 11 October 1947) is a Greek economist and academic who served as Prime Minister of Greece from November 2011 to May 2012, leading a national unity government in the wake of the Greek government debt crisis, Greek ...

(SB 1970), prime minister of Greece ;Astronauts *

Ronald McNair Ronald Erwin McNair (October 21, 1950 – January 28, 1986) was an American NASA astronaut and physicist. He died at the age of 35 during the launch of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of th ...

(PhD 1976), Challenger astronaut * Jerome J. Apt (PhD 1976) * John M. Grunsfeld (SB 1980) *

Timothy Creamer Timothy John "T. J." Creamer (born November 15, 1959) is a NASA flight director, retired astronaut and a colonel in the United States Army. Creamer was born in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, but considers Upper Marlboro, Maryland, to be his hometown. He ...

(SM 1992) * Neil Woodward (SB 1984)

Fictional alumni

Gordon Freeman Gordon Freeman is the silent protagonist of the ''Half-Life'' video game series, created by Gabe Newell and designed by Marc Laidlaw of Valve. His first appearance is in ''Half-Life'' (1998). Gordon is depicted as a bespectacled white man f ...

from ''Half-Life'' video games - has a doctorate in theoretical physics from MIT *

Tony Stark Iron Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Co-created by writer and editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, the character first appearan ...

from ''Iron Man'' - received degrees in physics and electrical engineering from MIT at age 19

References

External links

MIT Department of Physics website

{{Authority control Physics Department Physics departments in the United States Physicists from Massachusetts