For many scientists simple delight is the chief motivation, but as with any human endeavor, there are as many reasons for pursuing physics as there are physicists working. This page will help you learn about some of these motivations and begin to develop your own reasons for a career in physics. You might begin by meeting the people who do physics, or by exploring descriptions of physics, museums, histories of science, and physics on the web. Or you may prefer to see what the main branches of physics research are around the country as a way to organize your ideas about the field. As you become more informed you will be interested in the professional organizations that physicists form, the National Laboratories where many of the cooperative research projects get done, and other related organizations. You will also want to start thinking about graduate school and begin developing your taste for applications of physics in industry.

The People:

• Many physicists were also Mathematicians.
• Nobel laureates Meet those who have been awarded physics highest honor.
• The contribution of women has been significant though underpublicized.
• Historical and Biographical links at University of California, Riverside.
• Some Biographies at San Francisco State University.
• View a Picture Gallery of Famous Physicists or read quotes by them.
• Physicists talk about their careers at the AIP career forum
• Individual pages for interesting people. (A scattered selection made with no particular criteria)

Exploring physics:

• Read descriptions of the field of physics at AIP or BCC.
• You may be interested in these Physics Success stories.
• Perhaps the best hands-on museum in the nation is the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
• There is an excellent Physics Museum at Oxford and of course there is the Smithsonian.
• Learn about physics at the Physical Science Resource Center.
• Celebrate 100 years of the American Physical Society
• Visit the undergraduates page of your favorite university. (Illustrated by the page at Duke)
• Develop perspective by following links to the History of Physics.
• Or start your own web search from The Internet Pilot TO Physics (TIPTOP), or the BCC physics links page.

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Branches of physics: Most graduate programs offer degrees in the following areas.

Each bulleted item links to a representative page at an American university. Similar pages exist at other universities in each topic area, the pages here are chosen for the scope of information provided on that research field. They present one perspective and should not be taken as the difinitive description of that research area. For other perspectives you can visit a comprehensive list of graduate programs in the US. At each university you can search for a page on research interests for that department. The page for the physics department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is a good illustration.

In practice most of these branches of physics employ both theorists and experimentalists. Occasionally an individual wears both hats.

• Condensed Matter Physics
This is the study of matter when there are large numbers of particles in close proximity. Ordinary solids are the most common example. This research lead to the first transistor and to today's high capacity storage media. But the field also includes many esoteric forms of matter, from Nutronium (the substance of neutron stars) to matter confined to one or two dimensions. Recent work has produced samples numbering in the tens of thousands of atoms that all behave according to a single wave function (the atoms have lost their individual identities). These collections are called Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC) and form a new category of matter.
• Atomic and Molecular Physics
Individual atoms or small groups of atoms are the focus in this field. Some researches use single trapped atoms to make extremely precise measurements to confirm theories about Quantum Mechanics or Relativity. Others are exploring the interaction between atoms (or molecules) or the interaction between light and atoms. Lasers and laser physics are an important part of this research area.
• Nuclear Physics
As the name implies, this field examines the nucleus of the atom. While the composition of the nucleus is understood for all atoms and their isotopes, the arrangements and interactions of the nuclear constituents is still a rich field of study. Nuclear physics includes the fission and fusion reactions that provide nuclear power, as well as the nuclear synthesis process that fuels the sun and other stars.
• High Energy Particle Physics
This is where the theories about the fundamental structure of nature are devised. They are then tested at high energy accelerator laboratories and in the study of cosmic rays. Theories about the smallest particles and the largest structures in our universe have become linked by the Big Bang Theory. Many High Energy Physicists also do work in Cosmology.
• Mathematical Physics
Historically physics and mathematics grew up together, each field pushing the other into new realms. The mathematical physicist works on the border between math and physics to help us find a rigorous description of nature. Some of the most subtle and profound ideas in physics were created here.
• Physics Education Research
This is a relatively new field in physics departments. The practitioners are physicists who observe students learning physics and examine the difficulties encountered. Their work is changing the face of the college physics course nationwide.
• Interdisciplinary research
A growing number of departments support degree candidates who want to straddle two disciplines in their research. Topics like these at UIUC are indicative of the programs available. Here again your best search strategy is to visit the graduate programs, select a particular physics department, and search that site for research topics.

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Physics Organizations, Research labs, or closely related links.

• Organizations: These sites have multiple pages with considerable content and many related links.
• AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science
• AAS American Astronomical Society
• AIP American Institute of Physics
• APS American Physical Society
• AAPT American Association of Physics Teachers
• NAS National Academy of Sciences
• NSF National Science Foundation
• National Laboratories: These sites focus on facilities and research problems. They also contain related links and cool pictures.
• Brookhaven National Laboratory
• Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility
• Department of Energy
• Fermi National Laboratory
• Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• National Institute of Standards and Technology
• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Sandia National Laboratory
• Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
• Related fields or professional societies: Links and content. Some focused, some broad.
• List of sites relating to Women in Science and Engineering
• AMS The American Mathematical Society
• Optical Society of America
• Acoustical Society of America
• The Society of Rheology
• American Crystallographic Association
• American Astronomical Society
• American Association of Physicists in Medicine
• American Vacuum Society
• American Geophysical Union
• STSI The Hubbell Space Telescope Science Institute
• NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• The LIGO Project
• American Institute of Physics Affiliated Societies
• PIRA Physics Instructional Resource Association
• PSRC Physical Sciences Resource Center

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Graduate School.

• List of Graduate Programs in the United States
• Career planning, or a report on graduate programs from NAS.
• Some graduate school advice at Sonoma State University
• Graduate School discussion on this site
• Search on departments in other contries, and a list of universities around the world.
• SPS and AIP

Physics at Work

• American Institute of Physics Corporate Associates, or here for links.
• Cornell Nano Fabrication Facility
• General Atomics Fusion Group Educational Home Page
• Malin Space Science Systems