About Us

The Air Force has a long history of technological innovation. Some of the Department of Defense’s most brilliant minds helped pioneer inventions such as nuclear energy, GPS, the internet, and virtual reality. Our modern society owes much to these great government scientists.

The laws and equations behind every device which empowers our modern society were first discovered in a physics laboratory. And although the pace of scientific discovery over the past two centuries has been nothing short of amazing, there remains a plethora of fundamental “unknowns” for future physicists to discover—dark energy, dark matter, quantum gravity, Grand Unification Theory and more.

The U.S. Air Force Academy’s Department of Physics and Meteorology offers the opportunity for cadets to graduate with an accredited Bachelor of Science in either Physics or Meteorology, as well as a minor in Nuclear Weapons & Strategy. Graduates from these programs will go on to serve the Air Force as weather officers, physicists, pilots, nuclear research officers, space operators, flight test engineers, acquisition managers, engineers, intelligence officers, and in other AF career fields.

The department is home to four research centers and a research observatory that enable cadets and faculty to work alongside Department of Defense and national-level organizations. This research develops real-world solutions to enhance the capabilities of the Air Force and DoD. The knowledge and experience our graduates gain from the research they perform greatly prepares them for their future roles as Air Force officers. Information on the six research centers can be found at the Research Centers homepage.