physics

Summer in globally-warmed New York City is the cruelest of seasons. The 90-degree sun melts the skyline to a sooty mirage, and the air curdles. A merciless landscape for a curly-haired 18-year-old prone to fainting in the heat. Even the gum-scarred sidewalks sweat. In the past, I had escaped to the verdant hills of the Adirondacks to study violin. But music costs money until you’re trained, lucky, and brave enough to make your own. This summer, it was time to get a job and save for college expenses, and practicing in my room wasn’t going to cover the cost of my Lit Hum books.

The percentage of female graduate students in science and engineering fields at Columbia has remained virtually unchanged since 1998. However, this stagnation shrouds a more complicated picture underneath.

The 14th floor of Pupin Hall is a place not often visited by those who are not majoring in astronomy or astrophysics. Yet this past Friday, students and professors of all disciplines spent the late afternoon attending a space-themed event on the highest floor of the building.

On Sunday, Dec. 9, Julian von Abele, CC ’21, a sophomore in the physics department, made a series of claims perpetuating white male supremacy, especially in science, and further harassed a group of primarily Black women on campus. This incident of racism that occurred on campus showed that science and physics academia blatantly and covertly attacks minorities—and their ability to be a part of the field. His rhetoric further reflected an existing pattern in science academia at Columbia as a whole, and more specifically in the physics department.

David Helfand does not drink coffee for three reasons.

A physics Ph.D. candidate who tore down signs promoting tolerance of LGBTQ people in Pupin Hall was banned from the building and relieved of his teaching assistant duties last week.

Starting March 6, physics professor Brian Greene will be teaching the first two courses in a new, massive open online course website, World Science U.

For Liza Cooper, BC '17 and one of eight seniors majoring in the physics and astronomy department, being an astrophysics major at Barnard "takes a village."

Sixty-eight years after the Manhattan Project, something nuclear is reacting in Pupin once again.

Houston, K1 is ready for lift off.