Research, teaching and public engagement in Physics at UW–Madison
All celestial bodies — planets, suns, even entire galaxies — produce magnetic fields, affecting such cosmic processes as the solar wind, high-energy particle transport, and galaxy formation. Small-scale magnetic fields are generally turbulent and chaotic, yet large-scale fields are organized, a phenomenon that plasma astrophysicists have tried explaining for decades, unsuccessfully. In a paper published …
When he was younger, UW–Madison assistant professor of physics Josiah Sinclair wanted to be a scientist-inventor when he grew up. In high school, he would ask questions in biology and chemistry classes that his teachers said were really physics questions. So, when he began his undergrad at Calvin University, he majored in physics, believing that …
Summer at UW–Madison is filled with trips to the Terrace, amazing weather, and usually a break from classes. Physicists in Madison this summer can add one more thing to the list this summer: over a half dozen conferences, workshops, symposia and undergraduate research programs hosted on or near campus. UW physics summer conference season kicks …
A team of 13,508 scientists, including over 100 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, won the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced April 5. The Prize recognized work conducted at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) between 2015 and 2024. The Breakthrough Prize was created to celebrate the wonders of our scientific …