Master of Science [M.S] [Physics] From University of California

Over the course of the past century and a half, physics, chemistry, and mathematics have evolved into interdependent but separate intellectual disciplines. This development is reflected in the departmental structure of the School of Physical Sciences. In the same period, these fundamental disciplines have moved into domains of abstraction unimagined by early scientists.

This trend to abstraction with its concomitant increase in understanding of the physical universe provides the major challenge to the student of the physical sciences. Mathematics, physics, and chemistry, while providing the foundation of the technology that dominates contemporary civilization, underlie to an ever-increasing extent the new developments in the biological and social sciences. Earth system science is grounded in the traditional physical sciences while breaking new paths in the quantitative study of changes in the global environment.

The Department offers the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics. These degrees are awarded in recognition of demonstrated knowledge of the basic facts and theories of physics and of a demonstrated capacity for independent research. Active programs of research are underway in particle physics, nanophysics, biophysics, medical physics, condensed matter physics, low-temperature physics, plasma physics, gravitational physics, astrophysics, and cosmology.