Historic sites and events initiative
The X-10 Graphite Pile was the second nuclear reactor in the world to achieve criticality. It produced substantial quantities of plutonium for the Manhattan Project during World War II and later synthesized medical isotopes.
Around 170,000 years ago, a star exploded, sending neutrinos toward Earth. On February 23, 1987, the Irvine-Michigan-Brookhaven detector, 2,000 feet underground in the Morton Salt mine, captured these particles, confirming supernova theory.
The U.S. Naval Academy, now recognized as an APS Historic Site, is where Albert A. Michelson conducted his landmark experiment measuring the speed of light in 1879.
Green Bank Observatory has been a leading radio astronomy facility since its founding in 1957.
The Chicago Pile Site “Site A” is recognized for its transformational and impactful role in the development of nuclear energy, nuclear applications such as radioisotope production for medicine, and research employing neutron scattering.
Bronx Science’s alumni have won more Nobel Prizes in physics than any other secondary school in the United States.
On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi led the world's first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. The reactor was constructed under Stagg Field's west viewing stands.
At Mayer Hall, Walter Kohn and Lu Jeu Sham reduced to practice the method of Density Functional Theory
From 1962 to 1994, at the 4850 Level of the Homestake Mine, now the Sanford Underground Research Facility, Raymond Davis, Jr., in collaboration with others, build and operated the first successful detector for solar neutrinos.
On this site in 1955, a year after completion of the Bevatron, Chamberlain, Segrè, Wiegand, and Ypsilantis reported the discovery of the anti-proton.
On April 28, 1977, Morgan State University became the birthplace of the National Society of Black Physicists.
Since its opening in 1930, the Adler Planetarium has contributed immeasurably to the dissemination of exciting discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics.
APS recognizes the world-famous Hooker telescope as the place where astronomers Edwin Hubble, Milton Humason, and Walter Baade made world-changing discoveries about the cosmos.
APS President Roger Falcone presented the APS Historic Site plaque to Argonne National Laboratory, where Maria Goeppert Mayer carried out her research in nuclear physics.
The LIGO labs received dual plaques, which include inscribed depictions of the gravitational wave signals as detected at the respective laboratories.
Palmer Physical Laboratory is the site of Robert Dicke's innovations in atomic physics and spectroscopy.
Celebrating two distinct locations where physics milestones took place, APS placed a ceremonial plaque midway between two labs in the courtyard of the Varian Physics Building.
To capture data about cosmic rays, physicists in the U.S. found prime real estate at M. Evans and Echo Lake, Colorado.
In 1876, Edward Alexander Bouchet made history by becoming the first African American Ph.D. physicist. His alma mater was Yale, in New Haven, CT, where he had grown up.
Wardenclyffe, a 16-acre industrial property, once housed one of Nikola Tesla’s laboratories. It is one of only a few of his facilities left standing.
The original and often speculative thinking that the Institute encouraged over the years made it one of the world’s elite intellectual centers, supporting over 33 Nobel Laureates and scores of medalists and prize winners of prestigious awards.
The Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility was the successor to two earlier machines, which provided unique accelerated beams of light ions, heavy ions, and short lived-radioactive nuclei for nuclear structure and reaction studies.
The Synchrotron Radiation Center was a research facility providing infrared, ultra violet, and soft X-ray light for use in research on a multitude of materials, ranging from high temperature superconductors and computer chips to cancer cells.
On September 14, 2015, the American Physical Society and the European Physical Society (EPS) together recognized Albert Einstein's house in Bern, Switzerland, as the first official Joint EPS-APS Historic Site.
Fermilab scientists have discovered the bottom quark, one of 12 known elementary particles that make up the fabric of the universe, the top quark, and the tau neutrino, the long-theorized third type of this ghostly, mysterious particle.
Mount Washington Observatory provides ample opportunity for scientists to observe and maintain a record of weather data, perform weather and climate research, and foster public understanding of the mountain and its environment.
The discovery and first detection of the neutrino took place at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in 1956 by Frederick Reines and Clyde L. Cowan, Jr.
The Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York serves as the headquarters for IBM Research, the largest industrial research organizations on the planet.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is perhaps best known as the birthplace of the atomic bomb.
Terrestrial Magnetism is just one of many departments at the Carnegie Institution for Science, founded in 1904 to map the geomagnetic field of the Earth. It has since played a major role in interdisciplinary research.
The APS Historic Sites initiative recognizes the Tate Laboratory of Physics and prolific scientist Alfred O.C. Nier, whose work developed mass spectrometry, including the first-ever separation of the Uranium-235 isotope.
Ground-breaking experiments demonstrating the pressure of light and the transfer of momentum between light and matter have taken place at Dartmouth College.
On August 24, 2012, APS Past President Barry Barish presented a plaque to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to commemorate its 50th anniversary as a premier facility in the area of particle physics.
The Aspen Center for Physics, founded in 1962 by George Stranahan and Michael Cohen, is a historic site celebrated for its significant contributions to theoretical physics and collaborative research.
In 1956, a team of physicists associated with the National Bureau of Standards devised and performed experiments analyzing beta decays.
Brookhaven National Laboratory has contributed to myriad branches of physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, and environmental science.
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California sponsored the work of Charles David Keeling recording of carbon dioxide.
At this site, the original location of Bell Telephone Laboratories, D. J. Davisson and L. H. Germer in 1927 performed the first direct demonstration of the wave-like behavior of elementary particles, predicted by L. de Broglie in 1923.
The University of Michigan Summer Symposium in Theoretical Physics, held annually for less than 15 years in between WWI and WWII, is considered to have played a pivotal part in advancing physics.
On June 4, 2010, former APS Editor in Chief Gene Sprouse presented a plaque to the proprietors of the Ram’s Head Inn, in recognition of the Shelter Island Conference that contributed so much to modern scientific thought.
On May 16, 2010, APS President-elect Barry Barish presented a plaque to Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, to commemorate an event that had taken place there exactly 50 years before: operation of the world’s first working laser.
At this location, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy, during 1901-03, correctly explained radioactivity as emission of particles from the nucleus and established the laws of the spontaneous transmutation of the elements.
Jefferson Physical Laboratory became the first major instructional teaching laboratory associated with a university physics department in the U.S.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi performed extensive research at Columbia University on investigations into the nature of the force that holds atomic nuclei together.
As part of the APS historic sites initiative, on December 9, 2008, APS Vice-President Curtis Callan presented a plaque to Bell Labs to commemorate the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation that provided evidence for the Big Bang.
In October 2008, John Rigden, the chair of the APS Historic Sites Committee, presented Caltech with a plaque in honor of Professor Carl David Anderson and his discovery of the positron.
America’s first physics-only scientific journal, the Physical Review, first saw the light of day at Cornell University in 1893.
Ernest Orlando Lawrence and Milton Stanley Livingston worked together at the University of California at Berkeley to build cyclotrons, revolutionary particle accelerators. In 1939, Lawrence was awarded the Nobel Prize for his invention.
In this building, John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and J. Robert Schrieffer created the their theory of superconductivity, a great achievement of theoretical physics.
The MIT Radiation Laboratory played a key role in the development of radar during World War II.
APS honors physicist Joseph Henry for his pioneering work performed at the Albany Academy on electromagnetism, in particular the discovery of self-inductance.
Mathematical physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs' work in statistical mechanics laid the basis for the development of physical chemistry as a science. On April 20, 2007, APS presented a plaque to the Yale physics department in his honor.
On December 14, 2006, the American Physical Society presented a plaque to Bell Laboratories in honor of John Bardeen, William B. Shockley, and Walter H. Brattain for their invention of the transistor.
APS recognizes the University of Chicago in honor of Robert A. Millikan, who received the 1923 Nobel Prize for measuring the charge of the electron and verifying Einstein's prediction of the relationship between light frequency and electron energy.
APS recognizes Johns Hopkins University to commemorate the work of Henry A. Rowland, first president of APS and best known for the diffraction grating that bears his name, though he also made important strides in magnetism and thermodynamics.
In 1921-22, Arthur Holly Compton's X-ray scattering experiments at Washington University confirmed light's particle nature, supporting Einstein's 1905 theory. His groundbreaking work earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927.
In 1887, Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley conducted an experiment at Case and Western Reserve to measure Earth's motion through the ether, but no motion was detected. This led to Einstein's 1905 Special Theory of Relativity.
Benjamin Franklin was a printer, scientist, and statesman. His interest in electricity led to key discoveries, including the famous kite experiment, which showed that lightning is a stream of electrified air, now known as plasma.
Related
The Historic Sites Committee (HSC) selects sites to be included in the American Physical Society Register of Historic Sites and submits them to Council for approval.
Since our founding in 1899, APS has been carrying out our mission to advance physics.
This APS News column highlights historically significant moments in physics.
Classroom lessons, charts, webinars, and case studies to support physics education, research, and advocacy.