Physics Department, University of Northern Iowa

Physics Department, University of Northern Iowa "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.

Our annual Pizza Party for first-year students will be held on Friday. Physics faculty and staff will go to a Physics I ...
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.

The first week of classes passed without too many hiccups. During most of the summer, the HVAC system in Begeman Hall wa...
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.

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

Last Friday, UNI Physics students presented their research at the UNI Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Sympo...
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.

1. Physics and Science Education faculty member Larry Escalada attended Physics Day at Adventureland near Des Moines las...
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).

1. The Physics Awards Banquet was held last Friday in the Maucker Union. There were about 35 people in attendance, inclu...
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.

1. Physics students will actually be launching their rockets on Wednesday of this week (not last week). The weather look...
04/22/2026

1. Physics students will actually be launching their rockets on Wednesday of this week (not last week). The weather looks to be excellent, so blast-off should be a go. Cedar Falls, we have no problems.

2. Sixth graders from Cedar Falls schools will be visiting the Physics Department on Thursday. They will be engaging in standing wave activities that provide insight into quantum physics and quantum computing. We look forward to hosting the 6th graders!

3. Physics students presented at the INSPIRE conference held at UNI last week. This is likely the last of the several conferences that our students have attended and presented at this academic year. It has been a banner year for undergraduate research in physics!

4. Did you know? While most Nobel Prizes in Physics are awarded for groundbreaking discoveries or explanations of observed phenomena, the first American to win the prize, Albert Michelson, was recognized for an experiment that yielded a "null result." In 1887, Michelson and Edward Morley conducted a series of experiments at what is now Case Western Reserve University, proving the non-existence of the "luminiferous aether" - the substance once thought to be the medium for light waves. Their findings paved the way for Lorentz’s research and eventually culminated in Einstein’s theory of special relativity.

1. Both the State of Iowa Physics Competition and the Science Education Update Conference that were held last week were ...
04/13/2026

1. Both the State of Iowa Physics Competition and the Science Education Update Conference that were held last week were smashing successes. Nearly 200 students participated in the Physics Competition. Between events, some students engaged in a scavenger hunt around Begeman Hall. These students thereby received a self-guided tour of Begeman Hall! The overall winner of the competition was Dubuque Hempstead. Congrats to Hempstead! The Update Conference brought many teachers from across Iowa to UNI. They attended informative sessions, including one on capacitors presented by Physics faculty member Jeff Morgan. Massive thanks to Larry Escalada for coordinating both events!

2. The Physics Club will launch the rockets on Wednesday of this week. Last week, they built and optimized the rockets. Hopefully, the weather will not force the launches to be scrubbed.

3. Did you know? Most of the particles our matter is composed of are so called Dirac fermions. These particles have a distinct “twin”, called antiparticle (see our earlier post), which possesses the same mass but opposite charge. In contrast, Majorana fermions are equivalent to their own antiparticles, i.e., they are completely neutral. While this concept was proposed by Italian physicist Ettore Majorana in 1937, it remains one of the biggest mysteries of physics. These particles have never been discovered, and although it is hypothesized that neutrinos may be Majorana fermions, the argument is not settled yet. The disappearance of Ettore Majorana also remains one of the biggest mysteries of physics history. His mentor Enrico Fermi considered him one of the biggest scientific geniuses, at the rank of Newton and Galilei. On 25 March 1938, Majorana purchased a ticket for a boat trip from Palermo to Naples. He was 31, and he was never seen again.

1. The annual State of Iowa Physics Competition will be held on Tuesday of this week (April 7) in the Maucker Union and ...
04/08/2026

1. The annual State of Iowa Physics Competition will be held on Tuesday of this week (April 7) in the Maucker Union and Begeman Hall. Nearly 200 high-school students from across Iowa will participate in five events: Flying Machine, Mousetrap Car, Catapult, Optical Slalom and Fermi Questions. The is the second year that the event will be held in the Union, i.e., central campus. (It used to be held in the McLeod Center.) This is the first year that some events will be held in Begeman Hall, where student research posters will be on display. A scavenger hunt will also be conducted. We look forward to an exciting and successful event!

2. On Friday (April 10), the annual Science Education Update Conference will be held in the Maucker Union. K-12 teachers from across Iowa will gather to attend informational sessions and to network. Faculty members from UNI, Wartburg, and Iowa State will lead sessions that to provide information on new research and trends in K-12 teaching and pedagogy. Larry Escalada is the coordinator for both the Physics Competition and the Update Conference. He will be a very busy guy this week.

3. The Physics Club will be launching rockets on Wednesday (April 8). This has become an annual event, which happens to be well-timed – the Artemis II moon mission is currently underway. We look forward to seeing how high the rockets travel before gravity wins the battle.

4. Did you know? The existence of positron (the electron's antiparticle) was first proposed in 1928 by Paul Dirac in his seminal paper on relativistic quantum mechanics. While the particle was experimentally confirmed in 1932 - followed by the discovery of various other antiparticles - macroscopic quantities of antimatter have never been synthesized or observed. The mystery of why matter dominates over antimatter (which is essentially equivalent to asking why there is something rather than nothing) is one of the biggest unanswered questions in physics.

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215 Begeman Hall
Cedar Falls, IA
50614

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

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