Graduate students Mason Ng and Silviu-Marian Udrescu and physics junior April Cheng are invited to attend the upcoming Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The 73rd meeting will feature over 30 Nobel Laureates meeting more than 650 young scientists —  undergraduates, master students, PhD students, and postdocs – from more than 90 nations. Nobel Prize winners in attendance will include William Phillips ’76, George Smoot ’66, PhD ’71, and 1976 Nobel Laureate and Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Physics Samuel C.C. Ting. Mason Ng is finishing up his doctoral studies in astrophysics. He uses ..read more

Highlights include proton-proton smashups, first physics data for sPHENIX, new collisions “seen” by forward detectors at STAR, and more UPTON, N.Y. — Today marks the startup of the 24th run of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. Physicists at RHIC’s two house-sized particle detectors, sPHENIX and STAR, are eagerly awaiting the first collisions in Run 24 of protons speeding in opposite directions around the accelerator’s tw ..read more

Among three MIT Professors honored this year. https://www.bostonglobe.com./2024/04/11/arts/11-greater-boston-residents-win-guggenheim-fellowships-this-year/ The post Tracy Slatyer awarded 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship appeared first on MIT Physics ..read more

Five from MIT sign letter defending the telescope https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/11/nasa-telescope-budget-cuts-chandra-x-ray-observatory/73106444007/ Deepto Chakrabarty, Claude Canizares, Michael McDonald, Michael Calzadilla, Catherine Grant, Laurel White, Mason Ng, Kishalay De, Sarah Heine The post A NASA telescope unlocked the mysteries of black holes. Now it’s on the chopping block appeared first on MIT Physics ..read more

Michael Calzadilla grew up in Tampa, Florida. As a first-generation college student, he earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of South Florida in 2015. He subsequently crossed the pond to complete a master’s degree in astronomy as a Gates Cambridge scholar under the guidance of Professor Andrew Fabian at the University of Cambridge. Michael will complete his doctorate in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in May 2024 with his advisor Professor Michael McDonald. Michael’s work focuses on multiwavelength observations of galaxy clusters to study the baryon ..read more

The Institute also ranks second in five subject areas. QS World University Rankings has placed MIT in the No. 1 spot in 11 subject areas for 2024, the organization announced today. The Institute received a No. 1 ranking in the following QS subject areas: Chemical Engineering; Civil and Structural Engineering; Computer Science and Information Systems; Data Science and Artificial Intelligence; Electrical and Electronic Engineering; Linguistics; Materials Science; Mechanical, Aeronautical, and Manufacturing Engineering; Mathematics; Physics and Astronomy; and Statistics and Operational Research ..read more

She says one question drives her work: “Which pillars of gravitational physics are just not true?” As Netta Engelhardt sees it, secrets never die. Not even in a black hole. Engelhardt is a theoretical physicist at MIT who is teasing out the convoluted physics in and around black holes, in search of the fundamental ingredients that shape our universe.  In the process, she’s upending popular ideas in the fields of quantum and gravitational physics. One of the biggest revelations from her work to date is the way in which information that falls into a black hole can avoid being lost forever ..read more

Hundreds of observers took advantage of great weather to view the 2024 partial eclipse. The stars and other celestial objects truly aligned on MIT’s campus Monday. After a weekend of rain, the community was treated to clear skies and high temperatures to view the only partial eclipse for the next 20 years. Community members took in the interstellar anomaly in gatherings large and small. Although many traveled north to view the full eclipse, those in Greater Boston were treated with 93 percent coverage and ample ways to appreciate the cosmic wonder. As the moon met the sun beginning around 2:15 ..read more

Canizares: “The community needs Chandra.” From the Greeks to Galileo, from the Bablyonians to Brahe, the pursuit to understand the cosmos is as old as civilization itself. We went to the Moon, landed rovers on Mars, and did more than just stare at the night sky because we sought discovery. In exploring what’s up there, we were able to understand, launch by launch, photograph by photograph, a bit of how we came to exist. The Chandra X-ray Observatory, launched in 1999, contributes a unique perspective with X-ray imaging capabilities. Chandra has shaped our understanding of deep space over the d ..read more

Study shows neutrons can bind to nanoscale atomic clusters known as quantum dots. The finding may provide insights into material properties and quantum effects. Neutrons are subatomic particles that have no electric charge, unlike protons and electrons. That means that while the electromagnetic force is responsible for most of the interactions between radiation and materials, neutrons are essentially immune to that force. Instead, neutrons are held together inside an atom’s nucleus solely by something called the strong force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. As its name implies, t ..read more