Physics is the study of how the universe works - a quest for the framework that underlies all the glorious complexity we see around us. The Hamilton undergraduate physics program introduces students to both the theoretical background needed to understand this framework and the experimental methods used to test it.

One ideal route to a physics education is to work closely with experienced physicists. There are six full-time faculty and one instructor in our department and the faculty/student ratio and excellent facilities at Hamilton allow our students to do just that. The close student-faculty collaboration that is at the heart of Hamilton's physics program means that every major completes at least one substantial research project before graduation. Student projects often lead to papers that are presented at professional conferences and published in scholarly journals. All senior physics students work collaboratively with faculty members on research projects as part of the Senior Program.

This web site is a guide to the department. We invite you to explore what the study of physics at Hamilton has to offer.

Student Summer Research Activities - '08, '07, '06

Student Summer Research Activities - '09

Student Summer Research Activities - '10

Kate Arpino, Chemical Physics '10, earns award for poster presentation at international conference.

Kate Arpino, graduating with a concentration in Chemical Physics this May, 2010, gave a poster presentation at "The 17th International Conference on Dynamics Processes in Excited Solids" in June of 2010. The poster, titled "Post Annealing Immersion: A New Technique to Study Rare Earth Ions in Sol-Gel Glass and Other Porous Materials" won 2nd prize in the Best Poster contest at the conference. More information may be found here and here.

Tim Minella '09 receives American Astronomical Society student award.

Tim Minella '09, a double major in government and physics, was honored with the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in January of 2009. These awards are given to recognize exemplary research by undergraduate and graduate students who present at one of the poster sessions at the meetings of the AAS. Minella presented results of his research at the 213th meeting in Long Beach, California, in January 2009.

Minella's research, performed with Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connolly and Dr. Brian Connolly of the University of Pennsylvania (also a Scholar-in-Residence at Hamilton), investigated the use of an advanced statistical technique called sequential analysis for the next generation of large-scale cosmology experiments.

Many of these experiments will collect large samples of so-called Type Ia supernovae, which are crucial for understanding the expansion history of the universe and the nature of the mysterious dark energy that drives it according to current theory.

Nguyen T.T. Nguyen '08 is an Apker Award Finalist

Nguyen Thi Thao Nguyen, Hamilton College 2008 Salutatorian and double major in physics and math, was named one of 7 finalists for the 2008 LeRoy Apker Award. The award is given annually by the American Physical Society for outstanding research accomplishments in physics by an undergraduate.

Her research was performed in the lab of Professor Ann Silversmith. She spent two summers working on the project and continued the investigation for her senior project. The title of her senior thesis was "The role of Aluminum in Rare-Earth Doped Sol-Gel Silicate Glasses." Some of the work was presented at the Dynamic Processes Conference in Spain during the summer of 2007, and Nguyen has co-authored three publications which have appeared in the Journal of Luminescence and the Journal of Noncrystalline Solids.

In September Nguyen traveled to Washington, DC to give a presentation about her research. Apker Award winners are chosen in College and University categories by a panel of physicists. She has begun graduate study in mathematics at the University of Chicago.

Professor Silversmith studies the field of laser spectrocopy of solids. Her current emphasis is on the synthesis and spectroscopic characterization of rare-earth based sol-gel glasses. She supervised Nguyen's work on the use of aluminum as a doping agent that enhances the fluorescence yield of rare- earth doped sol-gels.