Alum Daniel Freedman, MS ’62 PhD ’64, recently won a Special Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics. He shares the prize with Sergio Ferrara and Peter van Nieuwenhuizen.
News Archives
Making biominerals: nature’s recipe is old, evolved more than once
In a report published today Aug. 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team led by Pupa Gilbert, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of physics, shows that the recipe for making shells, spines, and coral skeletons is not only the same across many modern animal lineages, but is ancient – dating back 550 million years – and evolved independently more than once.
Researchers recreate the sun’s solar wind and plasma “burps” on Earth
A new study by University of Wisconsin–Madison physicists mimicked solar winds in the lab, confirming how they develop and providing an Earth-bound model for the future study of solar physics.
The Big Red Ball was turned into a laboratory model of the Sun
Prof. Francis Halzen awarded 2019 Yodh Prize
Professor Francis Halzen, PI of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, was awarded the 2019 Kanwal & Gaurang Yodh Prize at the 2019 International Cosmic Ray Conference. He was honored for “his leadership and landmark contributions that cleared the path for the emergence of neutrino astronomy.”
Multimessenger collaboration between the Dark Energy Survey and IceCube leads to sensitive search for cosmic neutrino sources
Over the past two years, scientists in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) have been following up realtime neutrino alerts from IceCube with deep optical telescope imaging in search of supernovae that might be the origin of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos.
Physics researchers with the Wisconsin Quantum Institute earn $4M DOE grant
Researchers at the Wisconsin Quantum Institute (WQI) have been awarded a US Department of Energy grant to study the noise that hampers advances in quantum systems, including quantum computers.
The three-year, $4 million funding will allow the researchers to apply emerging tools to identify new materials and fabrication methods that can improve the performance of these systems.
Cosmic ray exhibits, conference explore the universe’s mysteries
The Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center welcomes hundreds of physicists from around the world as part of the annual International Cosmic Ray Conference at Memorial Union. Accompanying the conference is an art exhibit by UW-Madison art professor Faisal Abdu-Allahr, called Event Horizon, which includes portraits of three physicists holding objects that inspired their careers. The conference and the exhibit run through August 1.
Photo credit: Jim Madsen, UW-River Falls
IceCube: Antarctic neutrino detector to get $37 million upgrade
This month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) approved $23 million in funding to expand the IceCube detector and its scientific capabilities. Seven new strings of optical modules will be added to the 86 existing strings, adding more than 700 new, enhanced optical modules to the 5,160 sensors already embedded in the ice beneath the geographic South Pole.
Photo Credit: Johannes Werthebach, IceCube / NSF
Visiting Prof. Yamaç (Pehlivan) Deliduman Receives Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Fundamental Physics Innovation Award to Spend Summer in Madison
Prof. Yamaç (Pehlivan) Deliduman from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul, Turkey received the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Fundamental Physics Innovation Award from the American Physical Society to visit University of Wisconsin, Madison Physics Department in the summer of 2019. She collaborates with Prof. Baha Balantekin on quantum information theory as applied to neutrino physics.
Duncan Carlsmith’s innovative smart phone dropping physics course
Smartphones get a workout in a two-semester accelerated introduction to physics for potential University of Wisconsin–Madison physics, astronomy, and applied math, engineering and physics majors.
Phones get dropped, says Duncan Carlsmith, a professor of physics. They get thrown like a football. They get strapped to a pendulum or lashed to a bicycle.
Later, the phones spew out the data gathered by a surprisingly broad array of sensors: accelerometers, gyroscopes, audio and light sensors, magnetometers, and a precise timer.