This page features information for students who wish to pursue careers in physics. Topics include academic preparation for middle school, undergraduate, and graduate/postdoctoral students, biographies of physicists working in various specialties, and articles profiling physicists working in industry.

This virtual lab helps students explore the conservation of momentum. Simulated electronic balances, photogate timers, and rulers are designed to preserve as much of the traditional lab's educational experience as possible. Printable lab guides are included for the basic conservation of momentum lab, as well as elastic vs. inelastic collisions and the coefficient of restitution.

Freebookcentre.net's physics section contains links to many technical books offered free online, either as html pages or downloadable pdfs. Books are arranged by subject: Basic, Theoretical, Atomic, Particle, Quantum, and Nuclear Physics, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Classical Mechanics, and more.

This virtual lab simulates the traditional GM tube labs, complete with background radiation. In one lab, students can explore how different barriers affect alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, then apply their knowledge to identify an unknown source. In the other, students measure the half-life of a simulated Ba-137m source. Printable lab guides are included for both activities.

This virtual lab simulates the lab in which students repeatedly drop metal shot through a cardboard tube, but without the inaccuracies that often plague the traditional lab. Students first verify the principle of the mechanical equivalence of heat, then use it to calculate the specific heat of different metals. A printable lab guide is included.

This virtual lab helps students see that the vertical displacement of falling objects is not affected by their horizontal motion. Students can adjust the horizontal and vertical position as well as the muzzle velocity of the rifle, and they can freeze the animation at any point to measure displacements with an on-screen ruler. A printable activity guide is included.

The Motion Graphs virtual lab helps physics students learn the essential features of position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs. Students are provided sample graphs, and they try to move the on-screen caterpillar in order to make the caterpillar's motion match the sample graph. A printable activity guide is included.

This collection of Java applets lets students run interactive simulations of a variety of physics topics: docking with a space station, conservation of mechanical energy, planetary motion, the structure of an atom, and many others.

This site provides an introduction to optics, the science of light, for younger students. Topics include what light is and how it travels; what lenses are and how they work; and what lasers are and what they can do. There is also information on careers in science and engineering. Site materials include interactive features, a downloadable word search, and links to online resources and books.

The Photonics Wiki is large collection of articles, images and media assembled by the NSF Center for Material and Devices for Information Technology Research (CMDITR). It covers core concepts in photonics, non-linear optics and devices as well as other professional development resources for undergraduate and graduate level.

This online digest provides selections from the American Physical Society (APS) journals "Physical Review" and "Physical Review Letters." These articles, explained for students and researchers in all fields of physics, are suitable for college-level or advanced high-school students. The home page features links to the latest articles; back issues are archived by year and volume. There is also information on how to access RSS feeds of articles, news items that describe research from APS journals, and links to the web sites of all APS journals.

This site contains Portuguese-language physics games to teach high school-level students concepts like astronomy, electricity, mechanics, thermodynamics, and optics.

This collection of science projects covers electricity and magnets, optics, and other physical science topics. The projects are arranged by simple, medium, and advanced skill levels, and include videos that show the materials used and how the experiment is performed. There are also links to other science project websites and to sites where materials for the projects may be purchased.

X-ray absorption fine-structure (XAFS) is a spectroscopic technique that uses x-rays to probe the physical and chemical structure of matter at an atomic scale. XAFS.org is a community website (a wiki), editable by its users. Site materials include news articles, tutorials and overviews, and information on workshops, short courses, and XAFS-related conferences. There are also links to software downloads and documentation, information related to experiments and measurements of XAFS and related techniques, and discussions of field-specific applications. Other materials include theory and analysis of XAFS, techniques related to XAFS, and links to community groups and other organizations with related information.