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Physics

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MIT professor of physics Senthil Todadri seeks to understand unusual metals that defy the textbook description. “We’ve been making slow but steady progress, not just I, myself, but the community as a whole, but I would really like that progress to accelerate,” he says.

Faculty highlight: Senthil Todadri

A quest to understand superconductivity leads MIT theoretical physicist Senthil Todadri to discoveries about new magnetic materials called quantum spin liquids.

February 6, 2017

Pauline Morrow Austin

Celebrating Pauline Morrow Austin, a founder of radar meteorology

MIT faculty, friends, and family gathered to remember Austin's life and commemorate her contributions to science with the unveiling of an exhibit in EAPS.

January 31, 2017

Dawn Wendell, senior lecturer in mechanical engineering, helps a student during the motor debugging class in 6.A01 (Mens et Manus: Building on the Science Core).

Adding hands-on practice to science and engineering classes

A new advising seminar incorporates making and other types of hands-on learning to enhance first-year required courses.

January 30, 2017

Jason Dittman

Jason Dittmann named an inaugural Heising-Simons Foundation 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellow

Fellowship to provide scientists the opportunity to conduct theoretical, observational, and experimental research in planetary astronomy.

January 26, 2017

Professor Emeritus Otto Harling was director of the MIT Nuclear Reactor Lab from1976 to 1996.

Otto Harling, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering, dies at 85

Longtime Nuclear Research Lab director made advances in nuclear and condensed-matter physics, nuclear materials, reactor technology, and nuclear medicine.

January 12, 2017

New MOOC study explores 290 MIT and Harvard online courses, a quarter-million certifications, 4.5 million participants, and 28 million participant-hours.

Study of MOOCs offers insights into online learner engagement and behavior

New report, based on four years of data from edX, represents one of the largest surveys of massive open online courses to date.

January 12, 2017

"There is a reason I stayed at MIT at every opportunity. When it comes down to it, there’s just nowhere in the world with the same caliber of faculty and students," Michael Short says.

Inspired by radiation

Nuclear scientist Michael Short aims to understand the full range of defects produced when materials are exposed to radiation.

January 6, 2017

Decision points for the first player in an “envelope game” are graphed like the branches of a tree. In a game with two players, each has a potential payoff, but the first one’s actions determine the second one’s payoff in each round. Choices whether to gather more information by looking in an envelope that contains either a high or a low temptation and whether to cooperate or defect from t...

Using evolutionary dynamics and game theory to understand personal relations

MIT biophysicists apply mathematics from evolutionary biology to describe a surprising aspect of human behavior.

January 5, 2017

MIT affiliates were well represented in the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30, honoring young leaders.

At least 30 from MIT named to 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 lists

Students, faculty, staff, and alumni honored in "the most definitive gathering of today’s leading young change-makers and innovators."

January 5, 2017

MIT researchers describe a way to make atom interferometry with Bose-Einstein condensates even more precise by eliminating a source of error endemic to earlier designs.

Hyperprecise measurement with Bose-Einstein condensates

New atom interferometer could measure inertial forces with record-setting accuracy.

December 27, 2016

MIT postdoc Jörn Venderbos (left) and graduate student Vladyslav Kozii co-authored a new paper with Biedenharn Career Development Assistant Professor of Physics Liang Fu proposing that a class of superconducting materials can host Majorana fermions near absolute zero, and their existence can be verified using nuclear magnetic resonance.

Majorana fermions predicted in a superconducting material

MIT researchers propose a new method for verifying the existence of a theoretical quasiparticle.

December 21, 2016

MIT researchers believe they have finally captured the process of quantum melting — a phase transition in quantum mechanics, in which electrons that have formed a crystalline structure purely through their quantum interactions melt into a more disordered fluid, in response to quantum fluctuations to their density.

Scientists detect a quantum crystal of electrons and “watch” it melt

New observations confirm an 80-year-old quantum theory.

December 20, 2016

This mosaic image of the Crab Nebula was taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Features of this nebula and other astrophysical phenomena are being studied at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

Chikang Li brings the Crab Nebula to the lab

Plasma Science and Fusion Center researcher figures out the kink in the crab.

December 19, 2016

Participants in the first Rising Stars in Physics Workshop at MIT

Young women in physics explore faculty careers in inaugural MIT workshop

Rising Stars event features research presentations, panel discussions on academic life.

December 14, 2016

After making several upgrades, scientists have restarted the twin detectors of LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. The Livingston detector site, located near Livingston, Louisiana, is pictured here.

LIGO back online, ready for more discoveries

Upgrades make detectors more sensitive to gravitational waves.

November 30, 2016