Physics
Atmosphere
History
UMBC Phys Lore
Misc.
100
The formulation of classical mechanics that uses energy to derive equations of motion
What is Lagrangian Mechanics?
100
This layer of the atmosphere, extending roughly 8-15 km aabove the surface is where most weather occurs due to strong vertical mixing
What is the Troposphere?
100
Physicist who formulated the three laws of motion
Who is Isaac Newton?
100
Physics faculty researching X-ray activity of supermassive black holes
Who is Dr. Adi Foord?
100
The diatomic gas composing the majority of the Earth's atmosphere
What is Nitrogen (N2)?
200
The eigenenergies of a particle in a 1D box of length L
What is En = n2π2ħ2/2mL2?
200
This effect, driven by gases like CO2 and water vapor, keeps Earth's surface about 33 degrees C warmer than it otherwise would
What is the Greenhouse Effect?
200
James Clerk Maxwell unified these two forces with his famous equations
What are the Electric and Magnetic Forces?
200
This number of people earned their PhD in 2025 across both the PHYS and ATPH departments
What is 7?
200
The strongest of the four fundamental forces
What is the Strong Nuclear Force?
300
The best way to determine if light is linearly polarized
What is using a polarizer and seeing if it follows Malus' Law?
300
The atmospheric measurement denoted by the variable "U"
What is Humidity?
300
Physicist who introduced the idea of wave-particle duality
Who is Louis de Broglie?
300
Physics faculty who graduated from Stanford with their PhD
Who is Dr. Matthew Pelton?
300
This diagram is called 
What is a Skew-T chart?
400
The phenomenological theory that describes the average behavior of heat and work
What is Thermodynamics?
400
This type of scattering, dominant for particles much smaller than the wavelength of light, explains why the sky appears blue
What is Rayleigh Scattering?
400
The Michelson-Morley experiment attempted to detect the existence of this medium
What is Luminiferous Aether?
400
The year the first ATPH student finished their PhD
When is 2000?
400
The acronym L.A.S.E.R. stands for this
What is Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation?
500
The accumulated geometric phase over a cycle when a system is subjected to cyclical adiabatic processes
What is Berry's Phase?
500
This radiative transfer approximation, which assumes optical paths are small and only single interactions occur, is often used to estimate reflectance in thin atmospheres
What is the Single Scattering Approximation?
500
The experiment conducted by Robert A. Millikan that was able to measure the charge of an electron
What is the Oil Drop Experiment?
500
The two professors who obtained their PhDs at UMBC
Who are Dr. Adriana Rocha Lima and Dr. Todd Pittman?
500
The hypothetical coherent theoretical framework of physics containing all physical principles
What is the Theory of Everything?