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Physics Department, University of Northern Iowa

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Physics Department, University of Northern Iowa

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"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?" Albert Einstein

The UNI Physics department specializes in hands-on undergraduate education designed to prepare physics and physics education majors for the rigors of the real world. Our students are challenged in the classroom, the research lab, and as teachers themselves. Our department specializes in materials research; electronics, robotics, and computer interfacing, nano-science, and physics education. We also partner with other departments to provide exciting opportunities in astrophysics, bio-medical careers, and business & entrepreneurship.

10/06/2026

Our annual Homecoming Picnic is this Saturday! It will be held at Seerley Park for the first time in three years. It starts at noon, after the parade. If you have some time, please stop by for conversation and lunch. Remember that the UNI 150th Homecoming Bash is on Friday evening, with food trucks, live music and a drone show. The festivities will be held at the Campanile plaza. There will also be a dance party. The weather should be great, so we are looking forward to a fun and exciting weekend!

Last week, Dr. Takeshi Yasuda’s General Physics I lab dealt with friction. The students investigated static and kinetic friction between a wooden box and the laboratory table. In the pictures, the students are measuring the velocity of the box to determine its acceleration, which is useful for finding the coefficient of kinetic friction using Newton’s second law.

Did you know? When Paul Dirac published The Principles of Quantum Mechanics in 1930, he produced what is widely considered the first comprehensive textbook on quantum mechanics. The book is legendary not only for its influence, but also for its style: 785 equations, and exactly zero figures or diagrams. Only a few classics can rival such austerity. One famous example is Joseph-Louis Lagrange's Mécanique analytique (Analytical Mechanics), published in Paris in 1788, which likewise contains no illustrations and relies entirely on mathematical reasoning.

09/28/2026

Family Weekend was amazing! Several families attended our low-temperature demonstration show on Saturday. Among other things, flowers were instantly turned into potpourri using liquid nitrogen as an accelerator for this process. The families enjoyed the show and also the tour of Begeman Hall provided by Emrah, a physics/engineering major. The Panthers’ victory over Illinois State (who almost won the FCS national championship last season) made it an amazing Family Weekend indeed!

PHYSICS 1010 Physics in Everyday Life Lab is a general education (UNIFI) lab course offered by the Physics Department. The students perform experiments that illustrate how physics underlies everyday phenomena. Last week, the students conducted an experiment that investigated Archimedes’s principle of buoyancy. Archimedes’s principle states that the buoyant force acting on an object immersed in a fluid is equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. It explains why a small steel ball sinks in water while a battleship made of steel floats.

Did you know? Modern electron microscopes can achieve resolutions of less than 0.1 nanometer, approaching the size of a single hydrogen atom. Surprisingly, the true inventor of the electron microscope remains a subject of debate. In 1986, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Ernst Ruska for his pioneering work in electron optics and for designing the first electron microscope. However, U.S. patent records identify Reinhold Rüdenberg, a German-American electrical engineer, as the inventor through patents filed in 1932, around the same time Ruska built his first operational instrument. It's a fascinating reminder that scientific breakthroughs are not always accompanied by a clear consensus on who deserves the credit. This is just one of many examples of contested priority in the history of science.

09/21/2026

Family Weekend is this weekend. On Saturday, Physics will host a demonstration show featuring low-temperature phenomena. Tours of Begeman Hall will also be conducted. The event starts at 10:30 a.m. and ends at noon. The show will take place in 114 Begeman Hall. We look forward to seeing UNI students and their families on Saturday!

UNI formally celebrated its 150th birthday last Friday, September 18, 2026. The 100th year of the Campanile was also formally recognized. Unfortunately it rained, so the celebration had to be held indoors, at the Maucker Union. Spirits were not dampened, however. The next major sesquicentennial event is Homecoming, which is about 3 weeks away.

Did you know? The 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell for their pioneering work on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in solids and liquids. While their names may not be widely recognized outside the physics community, nearly everyone is familiar with the most important practical application of NMR: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a technology found in hospitals around the world. Physics students know Purcell as the author of the classic Electricity and Magnetism textbook from the renowned Berkeley Physics Course, while Bloch is celebrated for his groundbreaking theory describing electrons moving through the periodic structure of crystals.

09/16/2026

Correction: Family Weekend Physics demonstrations is on September 26, not September 12. We apologize for that error. One of those calendar disasters. Looking forward to seeing visitors on September 26!

We did get the date of the Pizza Party right and the party was great! It was wonderful for the new students to meet Physics faculty and staff, and have conversations. Prizes were awarded for the measurement of the height of the Campanile. The winners came within 2% of true height. There was also a prize for the most unusual method, which involved brick counting.

Did you know? The Cartesian coordinate system is named after René Descartes, a French philosopher and mathematician. Even though to many science students he is mostly known as an inventor of analytic geometry (also known as Cartesian geometry), he is also widely credited as one of the founders of modern philosophy. Maybe his most famous philosophical maxim is "cogito, ergo sum" (Latin for "I think, therefore I am"). Although this widely known Latin statement appeared in his work “Principia Philosophiae” (“Principles of Philosophy”), Descartes first formulated it in French (“Je pense, donc je suis") in another of his work “Discours de la Méthode” (“Discourse on Method”). Apparently, science and philosophy once shared the same coordinate system.

09/09/2026

Our annual Pizza Party for first-year students will be held on Friday. Physics faculty and staff will go to a Physics I for Science & Engineering class to introduce themselves and welcome the students to the Physics fold. There will be prizes awarded for the “Campanile Challenge,” which is to measure the height of the Campanile using physics and mathematics. (Climbing the Campanile and dropping a measuring tape does not count, and is certainly discouraged.) Of course, there will be pizza, and also conversation. We all look forward to this annual event!

Family Weekend is this weekend. On Saturday, Physics will host its usual Low-temperature Demonstration Show and offer tours of Begeman Hall. Activities begin at 10:30 am and end at noon. We look forward to seeing family members of physics students and anyone else who shows up!

Did you know? The discovery of the electron by J. J. Thomson in 1897 is a well-known story. Thomson measured the mass of the so-called cathode rays and demonstrated that they consisted of particles roughly 1,800 times lighter than a hydrogen atom, the lightest particle known at the time. What is less widely known is that the term electron was coined six years before Thomson's discovery by the Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney. Stoney introduced the term to describe the "fundamental unit quantity of electricity." Although Stoney had a distinguished scientific career and published approximately 75 papers, he is remembered today primarily for introducing the term electron.

08/31/2026

The first week of classes passed without too many hiccups. During most of the summer, the HVAC system in Begeman Hall was being upgraded. We all experienced interesting temperature extremes, including shivering cold. It seems the work is done now, so let’s hope for nice, consistent temperatures in Begeman Hall. Of course, outside will be different!

Several physics majors are preparing for a trip to Honolulu, Hawaii! They will be attending the international conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (MMM) in November. The students will present their results from this past summer’s research. More on this later!

Did you know? The youngest Nobel Prize winner in physics was William Laurence Bragg, who won the award in 1915 at the age of 25 (something that is hardly imaginable by today’s standards) alongside his father for their work on X-ray diffraction. The oldest laureate in physics was Arthur Ashkin who won the prize in 2018 at the age of 96 for his work on optical tweezers. Interestingly, a year later another physicist, John Goodenough became the oldest Nobel Prize winner at the age of 97 for his work on lithium-ion batteries. Goodenough received his award in chemistry, not physics.

08/27/2026

It’s back to school! The Fall 2026 semester has begun, and UNI is alive with throngs of students crisscrossing the campus. Welcome back students!

Nine students participated in research projects this past summer. Drs. Lukashev, Maleki, Shand, Stollenwerk, and Tabei all supervised student projects. The projects encompassed topics in interface physics, magnetism, biological physics and soft condensed matter physics. The students presented their research results in poster format at the annual Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium held at UNI on July 31. Some students will give oral presentations at a special colloquium for student researchers on October 28.

Did you know? The particle with the smallest non-zero rest mass is the neutrino. Its existence was first proposed by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to explain the missing energy observed during beta decay. At the time, the conservation of energy seemed to be failing, and Pauli bet on a nearly invisible particle to balance the scales. While Pauli birthed the idea, the name we use today — neutrino (Italian for "little neutral one") — is widely credited to the legendary Enrico Fermi. However, the history of science is usually a team effort. It is likely that Edoardo Amaldi, one of Fermi’s brilliant students at the Institute of Physics in Rome, was the one who actually suggested the name to him.

08/03/2026

Last Friday, UNI Physics students presented their research at the UNI Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium. Students presented their work on magnetic Heusler alloys, layered semiconducting materials, surface growth of granular materials, stochastic modeling of organic molecules, and image processing. The research projects were partially funded by the National Science Foundation and US Department of Energy.

05/04/2026

1. Physics and Science Education faculty member Larry Escalada attended Physics Day at Adventureland near Des Moines last Friday. About 500 students from 15 different Iowa high schools attended the event, which was the pilot for what will hopefully become an annual event. Larry reports that it was a great experience for all involved, so it looks likely that we will see this again next year!

2. It’s last week of instruction for the Spring 2026 semester! The time has absolutely flown by. As the Spring semester winds down, we are gearing up for summer research. There are 8 summer research fellows this year. We look forward to a productive summer of research!

3. Did you know that the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Aage Niels Bohr for his work on the structure of the atomic nucleus? If that name rings a bell, it’s for good reason - his father was the legendary Niels Bohr. Interestingly, the Bohrs aren't the only ones to keep the Nobel in the family. In fact, there are four father-son duos who have both reached the pinnacle of physics. Here are the names.

1) The Braggs (1915): Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg. (The only pair to win it in the same year! Picture below).
2) The Bohrs: Niels Bohr (1922) and Aage Bohr (1975).
3) The Siegbahns: Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn (1924) and Kai M. Siegbahn (1981).
4) The Thomsons: J.J. Thomson (1906) and George Paget Thomson (1937).

04/27/2026

1. The Physics Awards Banquet was held last Friday in the Maucker Union. There were about 35 people in attendance, including family and friends of physics students and faculty. The event included a delicious meal followed by amazing chocolate cake. Wilson Rojas of UNI’s Center for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning gave a talk on Artificial Intelligence, and then students received prizes or certificates for various departmental awards and scholarships. Graduating and transferring 3+2 students were presented with gifts. It was a lovely evening and we look forward to next year’s event!

2. On Wednesday, Dr. Zahra Aminzare of the University of Iowa Department of Mathematics will present the final Physics Colloquium talk of the 2025-26 academic year. The title is “How can animals walk without a brain?” Intriguing question. Attend the talk to learn the answer! The presentation takes place at 4:00 p.m. in 114 Begeman Hall. See you there!

3. Did you know? One of nature’s most elusive phenomena is ball lightning—a glowing, floating orb that often appears during intense thunderstorms. For centuries, scientists met thousands of eyewitness reports with skepticism. Because ball lightning is so rare and unpredictable, it proved nearly impossible to capture on film or reproduce under controlled conditions. This lack of hard evidence kept the phenomenon on the fringes of atmospheric science. In recent years, however, the mystery has begun to unravel. Researchers have proposed several theories, ranging from vaporized silicon to self-contained electromagnetic fields, and have even succeeded in creating brief, ball-like discharges in laboratory settings. Despite this progress, the true nature of ball lightning remains one of the most fascinating unsolved mysteries in the natural world.

Address

215 Begeman Hall
Cedar Falls, IA
50614

Opening Hours

Monday	7:30am - 5pm
Tuesday	7:30am - 5pm
Wednesday	7:30am - 5pm
Thursday	7:30am - 5pm
Friday	7:30am - 5pm

Website

http://www.uni.edu/physics

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