Chair of General Physics and Astrophysics named after Academician Victor Hambardzumyan

The Chair of General Physics and Astrophysics named after Academician Viktor Hambardzumyan was founded in 1933 within the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics.

From the day of its establishment to 1956 it was called the Chair of Experimental Physics, then it was renamed the Chair of General Physics.

In 1940 The Mechanics and Molecular Physics, and in 1944, the Optics laboratories were founded adjacent to the Chair. The first laboratory experiment manual in the mother tongue was published in 1953.

Later, the educational and scientific laboratories of the Chair were equipped with the necessary material and technical base, creating favorable conditions for conducting research and scientific experiments.

From 1978 to 1989, the "Physics of the Atmospheric" educational program was established and successfully operated at the Chair, including research and applied contractual works with the anti-hail and Moscow meteorological stations of the USSR. As a result, about 160 graduates received professional education, who played an extremely important role in the meteorological service and environmental protection activities in the republic.

In 1989, the program was replaced by the Cold Temperature Physics curriculum, which ran until the early 2000s. During the implementation of the program, the Chair actively cooperated with the Institute of Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

In 2009, the Chair of Astrophysics named after V. Hambardzumyan was merged with the Chair of General Physics, and the combined Chair is still named after V. Hambardzumyan. The Chair of Astrophysics was founded in 1945 under the leadership of academician Viktor Hambardzumyan, who led the Chair until 1994.

Within the framework of the Undergraduate program of the Institute of Physics, the Chair implements a part of the professional subjects of the "Physics of Condensed Environments" direction, as well as the majority of the subjects of the "Physics and Astrophysics of Elementary Particles" direction.

Within the Master's degree program, the Chair prepares specialists in the "Astrophysics" specialty. It covers a number of topical areas, including non-stationary processes in the universe, the Sun and the Solar System, extragalactic astronomy, radio astronomy, superconductivity, and superfluidity. The subject "Physics of Quantum Technologies" which was developed in the Chair is of essential importance in training modern physicists.

In 2013 the "International Physical Ecology" laboratory was founded and operates based on the Chair, which actively cooperates both with relevant laboratories of a number of foreign universities (USA, Japan, England, Russia, etc.) and with YSU faculties of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Mechanics. 

The Chair of General Physics and Astrophysics involves groups dealing with various scientific topics, which carry out important theoretical and experimental works corresponding to the modern scientific level.