The physics department of the American University of Beirut is almost as old as the university itself, although in the beginning there was no separate physics department, it was then considered a part of a course in natural philosophy. In 1908, Julius Arthur Brown was appointed the first Professor of physics. Currently, the department offers an undergraduate program leading to the degree of Bachelor of Science B.S. and more advanced training leading to the degree Master of Science M.S. Furthermore, the Ph.D. program was launched in 2008.

A question often asked: Why study physics?
One may answer that physics is the most fundamental of all natural sciences, and advances in physics underlies most of the spectacular technological achievements in the 19th and 20th centuries.

NEWS

Dr. Ali Chamseddine received the 2008 Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) prize in Physics.  Dr. Chamseddine was honored for his fundamental contributions to supergravity and noncommutative geometry.  The prize was announced last October at the general meeting of TWAS in Durban, South Africa. 

CONFERENCES

Dr. Malek Tabbal participated in the European Materials Research Society Spring Meeting, Strasbourg, France by presenting one oral talk and two posters entitled, respectively, “Control of bonding and nanostructural properties of manganese oxide films grown by plasma assisted PLD”, “Investigation of the growth of nano-grained MnO₂ thin films by laser ablation”, and “Effect of deposition temperature on the properties of sputtered YIG films” (June 2009).

TALKS

Dr. Adbulaziz Alhaidari (Founder & Board Member, Saidi Center for Theoretical Physics, Dhahran, SAUDI ARABIA) gave a talk entitled "Resolution of the Klein Paradox and Transmission Resonance in High Barriers" on March 10, 2010.

Miss Rana Ashkar (Indiana University, Indiana University Cyclotron Facility, Department of Physics, Bloomington, Indiana, USA) gave a talk entitled "Spin-Echo Scattering Angle Measurements (SESAME)" on January 7, 2020.

Dr. Imad Agha (Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, Paris, FRANCE) gave a talk entitled "Four Wave Mixing in Highly Resonant Systems:  Nonlinear and Quantum Effects" on December 23, 2009.

THESES

Miss Naima Hammoud defended her thesis entitled "The Unsteady Dynamics of a Jet Impinging on a Moving Plate" on March 1, 2010.

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