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James W. Nicholson and the Origins of Physics at LSU

Nicholson Hall was named for James W. Nicholson, a professor of mathematics who served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and later as president of the University. The story behind Nicholson Hall reaches back well before the building itself. In the early 1870s, LSU's program in Natural Philosophy and Astronomy already included General Physics and Mechanics. The curriculum addressed matter, motion, force, gravity, heat, electricity, magnetism, and mechanics. The breadth of these subjects shows that the physical sciences were already an important part of the University's educational mission.

By the late 1870s, the University had a Department of Physics and Mechanics. Physics was developing as a broad field connecting mechanics, astronomy, electricity, and the study of nature.

Physics at Heard Hall

In the early twentieth century, Heard Hall, on LSU's former campus in downtown Baton Rouge near the site of the present State Library, became an important home for the physical sciences. It was described as a two-story Physics and Civil Engineering building. Physics and Electricity occupied the first floor, while Civil Engineering and Mathematics occupied the second floor. The physics curriculum included General Physics, Mechanics, Theoretical Mechanics, laboratory work, heat, light, electricity, and magnetism. By 1920, Heard Hall contained lecture, laboratory, apparatus, office, and darkroom spaces for physics, together with equipment for optics, electricity, magnetism, and astronomy.

A New Home on LSU’s Present Campus

Physics moved to the present LSU campus in the late 1920s. By the early 1930s, Physics and Astronomy was located in Engineering Hall, with lecture rooms, offices, and specialized laboratories for general physics, heat, light, electricity, and magnetism. In the middle of that decade, a new Physics and Mathematics Building was under construction. Engineering Hall continued to house Physics and Astronomy during this transition.

Nicholson Hall opened in 1937 as one of six new buildings added during that period. It was a two-story building with a full basement, named for James W. Nicholson and occupied by Mathematics and Physics and Astronomy. By 1939, its rooftop observatory was in place. The building also housed the Engineering-Physics-Mathematics Library and the Physics Department radio station W5YW. Nicholson Hall was therefore more than a new departmental address. It brought together classrooms, laboratories, a library, radio, and astronomy in one of the University's most important academic buildings.

The accompanying graphic was scanned and color-enhanced from a photograph of the stucco medallion above Nicholson Hall's original entrance on the east side of the building. The symbols along the lower edge represent eight planets in the solar system. Pluto, discovered in 1930, is not included because the building was erected while astronomers were still debating Pluto's status as a planet. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union adopted a definition of “planet” that classified Pluto as a dwarf planet, making the medallion's eight-planet count appear correct once again.

A later section was added to Nicholson Hall in 1959. It connected the original building to the newer annex through a breezeway on the third floor, leaving the original entrance and medallion partly hidden between the two sections. Additional renovations were completed in December 2003, marking the first major work on Nicholson Hall since the 1959 addition.

The department's history also includes the development of Medical Physics and Health Physics. The program began around 1980–81 as a collaboration between the LSU Nuclear Science Center and Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. It initially grew from LSU's earlier strengths in nuclear science and later developed a distinct focus on health physics and medical physics. In 1999, the program merged into the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Its M.S. medical physics track received CAMPEP accreditation in 2006, followed by the Ph.D. program in 2011, and the Mary Bird Perkins residency in 2012.