The Quantum Mind

Physics

Major • Minor

Many Paths. Many Options.

Life is full of difficult choices. And bountiful opportunities. The Berry physics major is no exception.

Choose the track that matches your goals: Professional (if your aim is physics grad school), Applied (for engineering or technical careers), or General (for teaching at the high-school level).

Whatever your focus, you’ll be actively engaged in student-centered classes, pursuing research as early as your first year and getting the chance earn a paycheck while developing professional experience in your field.

Students pilot a robot through a wooden maze
Hands On

Join your professors in research, analysis and co-authoring findings. Do an off-campus internship with the National Science Foundation or NASA. Help set up Berry’s labs, tutor fellow students or work in our campus observatory.

Physics FACULTY

Dr. Todd Timberlake
Professor and Department Chair, Physics, Astronomy and Geology
Dr. Todd Timberlake

In addition to teaching, Todd Timberlake is a devoted mentor—to students and Berry alumni alike. Recently he oversaw student research on wave packet revivals in a quantum system which was published in the American Journal of Physics, advised an Honors thesis by a student who is now pursuing an Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt and collaborated with a former student who is a high school physics teacher to bring her students to Berry’s observatory.

Students studying in the dark
Across Our Universe

Answer your burning physics questions in student project rooms. Ask questions of the stars at our on-campus observatory. And consider the staggering scope of the heavens by walking our billion-to-one scale model of the solar system.

Physics Courses

PHY 240
Practical Electronics

Explore analog and digital electronics with a focus on practical applications. Topics include basic DC and AC circuits, diodes, transistors, operational amplifiers, integrated circuits and electronics safety.

PHY 410
Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

Dig into the laws of thermodynamics, the kinetic theory of gases and statistical mechanics.

PHY 435
Subatomic Physics

Choose a topic that matches your experience and interest—such as the atomic nucleus, quantum electrodynamics, conservation laws and symmetries or the standard model of particle physics.

Physics LIVES

CLASS OF 2018
Physics major heads to grad school

By the time he graduated, physics major William Newman ’18 had already conducted research with two of his professors and was co-author of articles in two professional journals—the American Journal of Physics and Month Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society—and will soon be published in a third. William leaves Berry with considerable momentum and lab experience as he heads to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to pursue a doctorate in atomic and optical physics.

William Newman

Related Programs

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