General News

After 15 years of design and construction, the first proton-proton collisions were produced in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) today. Collision observations were made in all four detectors located around the accelerator ring, including the CMS detector. The image attached to this article shows the flows of particles produced by one of the first collisions, as measured by CMS. More »

The Physics Force will return to Northrop Auditorium for its popular series of January shows. There will be two public performances this year, Thursday, January 7th at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday January 10th at 2:00 p.m., which are free and open to the public with no reservations needed. No weather cancellation. The Evening Public Performance will go on! More »

Professor James Kakalios delivered a speech to the freshman Class of 2013 at Convocation 2009. He described the secret of making the most of one's eduction as learning to be simultaneously a geek and a nerd. You can watch the speech on Youtube.

The NOvA collaboration is a University of Minnesota physics project. A short documentary put out by Fermilab and the Department of Energy highlights the positive impact that the NOvA project has had on the small community of Orr in northern Minnesota. More »

The Physics picnic will take place at Boom Island Park on Sunday, September 27st, 1-5pm. More »

The University News Service video "The Science of Watchmen" featuring Professor James Kakalios, which has received more than 1.5 million views on YouTube, received a regional Emmy Award in the "Advanced Media: Arts/Entertainment" category. More »

Results from LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration have set the most stringent limits yet on gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity. More »

While a particle physicist may tell you that neutrinos are fiendishly difficult to observe, the public visibility of neutrinos in Minnesota has changed dramatically with the approval of more than $40M of stimulus funding for the NOvA project. More »

The CLEO collaboration has recently submitted its 500th publication to a peer-reviewed journal. This is the largest number of papers of any collaboration in the history of elementary particle physics. More »

The School of Physics and Astronomy will hold orientation from August 24 to September 4, 2009. Students will receive a copy of the orientation schedule when they arrive. Please contact Judy Soine if you have any questions.