14,000 Physicists Descend on Denver for the Global Physics Summit

Nearly 14,000 scientists will gather in Denver and online from March 15 to 20 for the American Physical Society's Global Physics Summit, the largest physics meeting in the world. The conference features more than 12,000 individual presentations covering astrophysics, particle physics, quantum information science, computational physics, and everything in between.

Nobel laureates and underground neutrinos

The meeting opens with a special session on March 15 in which all three winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics will discuss their prize-winning research on macroscopic quantum phenomena. The session runs from 4 to 6:12 p.m. Mountain time in the Bellco Theatre at the Colorado Convention Center.

On Monday, March 16, Fermilab will host an in-person panel discussion and virtual tour of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), currently under construction in Illinois and South Dakota. DUNE is one of the most ambitious particle physics experiments of the coming decade, designed to study the properties of neutrinos by firing a beam of them 1,300 kilometers through the Earth's crust. The panel, held in the press room from 10 a.m. to noon Mountain time, will feature scientists and engineers working on the project. The panel portion will be livestreamed.

Quantum computing and underground labs

On Tuesday, March 17, the Colorado School of Mines will present a panel discussion about CURIE (Colorado Underground Research Institute), a project transforming part of a historic silver and gold mine into a shallow underground laboratory for quantum information science, subatomic physics, and quantum sensing research. The session runs from 11 a.m. to noon in the press room.

Wednesday morning brings a breakfast briefing from Quantum Machines on the latest advances toward fault-tolerant quantum computing, featuring the company's chief technology officer, a 2025 Nobel laureate, and scientists from MIT and the Niels Bohr Institute. The briefing runs from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. in the press room and will be livestreamed.

Public events

Before the scientific program begins, the public is invited to Squishy Science Sunday at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on March 15. The family-friendly event features hands-on physics activities and is included with a general admission museum ticket (discounted tickets available with code APSSQUISHY26).

Press access

An in-person press room will be available in meeting room 608 of the Colorado Convention Center, open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to noon on Friday. An adjacent interview room is available by reservation or on a first-come basis. News media with valid APS press credentials may register at no cost through the APS online newsroom.

A science writers happy hour, co-hosted with the Science Writers Association of the Rocky Mountains, takes place Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Assembly Hall Bar and Market in the Hyatt Regency. Press registrants will receive two complimentary drink tickets.

Scope and limitations of this preview

This article describes the meeting's press program and featured events. The full scientific program is far larger, with more than 12,000 presentations spanning nearly every subfield of physics. Detailed schedules, abstracts, and session information are available through the APS scientific program search tool. All times listed are in Mountain time.

The conference is a venue for presenting new research, not for peer-reviewed publication. Results presented at meetings are preliminary and should be interpreted with the understanding that they have not yet undergone full peer review. Media coverage of meeting presentations should note this distinction.