The physics department’s faculty and students both note that the program’s small size has its advantages. Says Professor of Physics Harvey S. Picker, who is acting chair of the department, "At a large research university you may find more physics majors and more equipment, but at Trinity there is a level of personal involvement that you won’t find at big schools."

For physics majors in particular, that personal involvement includes key opportunities to gain undergraduate research experience — sometimes even coauthoring professional papers — by working closely with faculty members on research projects. Dedicated teachers, physics faculty members are also eager researchers, a combination that provides ideal mentoring conditions for student scientists. In addition to operating four instructional laboratories — three for introductory physics courses and one senior-level lab — the department also supports three faculty research laboratories. This environment offers opportunities for students to work side by side with their professors on real-world problems. For example, Jarvis Professor of Physics Albert J. Howard, Jr. has included several students as coresearchers in his 10-year study that measures the presence of radon in various campus locations, using an electron-counting technique he developed. In the words of his colleague Professor Picker, Howard has "trained several generations of experimental nuclear scientists," both in his Trinity laboratory and at the nation’s top labs, such as the one at Yale University where he is currently on sabbatical.

Professor Silverman, whose research interests include optics and quantum mechanics, is currently collaborating with Christopher Koning on a research project in the field of thermal physics. Their experiments involve blocks of ice, a set of weights, and a wire that passes through the ice without splitting it (thanks to a phenomenon called regelation). Silverman hopes the result will be a mathematical formula that may help explain how and why glaciers move. Koning, who expects to enroll in graduate school to study mathematical physics, says that learning good lab practices has been a key part of his education. Also important, he notes, is learning to think in an organized fashion, to "break things down into necessary and unnecessary information."