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Here are some suggested topics for term papers. These are here to give you ideas, and you don't have to choose one of these topics. I have broken them into two categories: history of physics and current physics topics.
History of Physics Topics
 | the Michelson-Morley experiment |
| early tests of relativity |
| Millikan's oil-drop experiment |
| the discovery of the electron |
| Rutherford's nuclear scattering experiments |
| the discovery of the neutron |
| early attempts to understand the photoelectric effect |
| early attempts to overcome "ultraviolet catastrophe" |
| Roentgen's early work with x-rays |
| Sommerfeld's relativistic extensions to Bohr theory |
| the first maser or laser |
| London's connection between superfluidity and Bose condensation |
| the discovery of the transistor |
| the discovery of fission |
Current Physics Topics
| gravity waves |
| neutrino mass and neutrino oscillations |
| atom lasers |
| atom interferometry |
| dark matter |
| Bose-Einstein Condensation |
| Fermi degeneracy |
| world's most accurate clock |
| evidence for antimatter cloud just outside Milky Way |
| physics size limits to electronic circuit elements |
| prospects for commercial fusion reactors |
| x-ray lasers |
| proton lifetime |
| quantum computing |
| superconductivity |
| "Schrodinger cat" experiments |
You may also find a topic that interests you by looking at recent copies of Physics Today and Physical Review Letters
Make sure that this paper is focused on physics. Applications of physics to technology can be interesting elements to the paper, but not the focus.