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23-596: Pupin Physics Laboratories / ˈ p j uː p ɪ n / , also known as Pupin Hall , is home to the physics and astronomy departments of Columbia University in New York City . The building is located on the south side of 120th Street , just east of Broadway . In 1965, Pupin was named a National Historic Landmark for its association with experiments relating to the splitting of the atom , achieved in connection with

46-426: A Serbian scientist and graduate of Columbia. Returning to the university's engineering school as a faculty member, he played a key role in establishing the department of electrical engineering. Pupin was also a brilliant inventor, developing methods for rapid x-ray photography and the " Pupin coil ," a device for increasing the range of long-distance telephones . After his death in 1935, the university trustees named

69-472: A golden era of fundamental research at the university. One of the country's first cyclotrons was built in the basement of Pupin Hall, where parts of it still remain. Before and after the Second World War , research was conducted into the magnetic moments of nuclei and electrons. Together with Willis Lamb 's work on the understanding of the fine structure of hydrogen, these experiments were crucial to

92-710: Is a landmark due to the advances in nuclear research made there during the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapon. It is connected to the university tunnels , from which one can occasionally access the Manhattan Project's leftover cyclotron and other historic research facilities. Many of these have been sealed off since the 1980s, when Ken Hechtman wrought havoc with nuclear materials he stole from Pupin's basement. Other discoveries and breakthroughs achieved in Pupin, or by scientists who were faculty at Pupin at

115-514: Is conducted in Pupin Hall and the Shapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Sciences Research (CEPSR), both on the university's Morningside Heights campus, Nevis Labs upstate, and at a number of other affiliated institutions. The department is connected with research conducted at Brookhaven National Laboratories and at CERN . Columbia has approximately 20 undergraduate physics majors and

138-595: Is home to about 100 graduate students. The roots of graduate physics can be traced back to the opening of the School of Mines in 1864 although the department was only formally established in 1892. In 1899 the American Physical Society was founded at a meeting at Columbia. Several years later, the Earnest Kempton Adams Fund enabled the department to invite distinguished scientists to the school. Among

161-562: Is on top of Pupin. The Astronomy Department hosts bi-monthly Public Observing Nights, and serves the Tri-State area in hosting people interested in observing with an optical telescope. The Center for Theoretical Physics, which opened in 2016, is on the ninth floor of Pupin and offers a modern office space covered in blackboards. As Brian Greene put it, "the center space is designed to encourage interactions among faculty and students.” Columbia University Physics Department This research

184-609: Is the astronomical facility maintained by Columbia University named after Lewis Morris Rutherfurd . Initially, Rutherfurd housed its telescopes and equipment in midtown Manhattan and later on the Stuyvesant Estate. When the Morningside campus was built, telescopes were kept in a "transit building" where the Interdisciplinary Science Building now stands. When Pupin Physics Laboratories were completed in 1927,

207-682: The muon neutrino was distinct from the electron neutrino . Today, Columbia experimenters conduct work at labs across the world. These include CERN , in Geneva, Switzerland, Brookhaven National Laboratory , in Upton, New York, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , in Batavia, Illinois. Pupin Labs also houses a 400-Gigaflops dedicated supercomputer built by Norman Christ , which is used for calculations in lattice quantum chromodynamics . Scientists who have received

230-561: The Czarist government of Russia. It was to be installed at a site to observe an upcoming solar eclipse in Russia. With unrestricted U-boat warfare during World War I , shipment was delayed until the war ended. The new Russian government headed by Lenin refused to pay for or accept the telescope, which remained crated in a warehouse until 1920, when Columbia bought it. The telescope was for many years used almost entirely for student education. It

253-527: The Nobel Prize for work done while on faculty at Columbia University: Other faculty: Scientists who received the Nobel Prize and have doctorates from Columbia University: Visiting professors: Research staff: EKA Lecturers: This article is an adaptation of the summarized history found at the Columbia University physics department homepage: Rutherfurd Observatory Rutherfurd Observatory

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276-458: The Nobel prize for his work on induced radioactivity. In fact, he took his wife and children with him to Stockholm and immediately emigrated to New York. Shortly after arriving he began working at Columbia University with Dr. John Dunning. His work on nuclear fission, together with I. I. Rabi's work on atomic and molecular physics, ushered in a golden era of fundamental research at the university. One of

299-591: The country's first cyclotrons was built in the basement of Pupin Hall by John R. Dunning , where it remained until 2007. The building's historic significance was secured with the first splitting of a uranium atom in the United States, which was achieved by Enrico Fermi in Pupin Hall on January 25, 1939, just 10 days after the world's first such successful experiment, carried out in Copenhagen , Denmark . The building

322-435: The development of the maser , the microwave precursor to the laser , at to the observation of large nuclear quadrupole moments , which led to the introduction of the unified nuclear model by James Rainwater . In the 1940s theoretical research was focussed on calculations in quantum electrodynamics. In the 1950s, there was a shift towards high-energy physics . During this time Tsung-Dao Lee and his collaborators' work led to

345-567: The discovery of parity and charge conjugation symmetries in the weak interaction . During these years, a new, more powerful cyclotron was also built at Nevis. As physicists investigated matter at ever finer scales, higher energy experiments were required. Many of these were done at Nevis and at Brookhaven. Rainwater and Fitch explored the structure of nuclei by observing x-ray transitions in muonic atoms. Richard Garwin and Leon Lederman observed parity nonconservation in pion and muon decay. Lederman , Schwartz , and Steinberger proved that

368-502: The distinguished EKA lecturers were Hendrik Lorentz (1905-1906) and Max Planck (1909). During Lorentz's stay at Columbia he wrote one of his most important works, the Theory of Electrons . By 1931, Pupin Labs was a leading research center. During this time Harold Urey (Nobel laureate in Chemistry) discovered deuterium and George B. Pegram was investigating the phenomena associated with

391-546: The home of the observatory was moved to the top of the building. Below the Rutherfurd Observatory on the 14th floor was the site of Professor Wallace Eckert 's Astronomical Laboratory, in which he constructed the first device to perform general scientific calculations automatically in 1933-34. The observatory formerly included a twelve-inch (30 cm.) refractor telescope built by the Alvan Clark firm in 1916 for

414-535: The later Manhattan Project . In 2009 the American Physical Society named Pupin Hall a historic site and honored Isidor Isaac Rabi for his work in the field of magnetic resonance. Pupin Hall was built in 1925–1927 to provide more space for the Physics Department which had originally been housed in Fayerweather Hall . In 1935, it was renamed after Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (also known as Michael I. Pupin),

437-414: The later development of quantum electrodynamics , for which Feynman and Schwinger won the Nobel prize. During this same time Chien-Shiung Wu was conducting landmark research at Nevis on weak interactions, which led to the theoretical prediction and subsequent observation of maximal parity nonconservation . During the war, many microwave techniques were learned that were later used at Columbia for

460-419: The newly constructed physics building the "Pupin Physics Laboratories" in his honor. By 1931, the building which later became Pupin Hall was a leading research center. During this time Harold Urey (Nobel laureate in Chemistry) discovered deuterium and George B. Pegram was investigating the phenomena associated with the newly discovered neutron . In 1938, Enrico Fermi escaped fascist Italy after winning

483-402: The newly discovered neutron . In 1938, Enrico Fermi escaped fascist Italy after winning the Nobel prize for his work on induced radioactivity. In fact, he took his wife and children with him to Stockholm and immediately emigrated to New York. Shortly after arriving he began working at Columbia. His work on nuclear fission, together with Rabi's work on atomic and molecular physics, ushered in

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506-540: The time of discovery include: The current main entrance to Pupin is on the 5th floor from the plaza above Dodge Physical Fitness Center . This means that many of the seminar rooms in Pupin on floors 2-4, while above ground, are below campus level and, therefore, windowless. The original entryway was on the first floor from the Grove, but got blocked by the construction of Dodge in the 1960s. Uris Pool has an exit stairway leading into Pupin's entry. The Rutherfurd Observatory

529-482: Was sold in 1997 to South Carolina State Museum , which specializes in the upkeep of the old Alvan Clark refractors. In the 1970s, the "Columbia CO Survey" built a 1.2-meter radio telescope that operated out of the Little Dome and was the first to map the sky in this important radio band. Rutherfurd observatory has been in continuous operation since Pupin was constructed, but in 2009 a new "Northwest Corner Building"

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