Howard “Cork” Hayden is a Professor Emeritus of Physics from the University of Connecticut. A Pueblo native, he graduated from Aurora High School, entered the University of Denver as an engineering major, but soon discovered that he wasn’t temperamentally suited to all that reality. He switched to physics and went on to earn his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. at DU.
On receiving his Ph.D., he went to the University of Connecticut where he spent 32 years doing teaching and research. He did accelerator-based atomic physics, including measurements of cross-sections for various processes, measurements of energy loss in atomic collisions and of lifetimes of excited states, beam-foil spectroscopy, and ion implantation. He performed a Trouton-Noble (1904) experiment with 100,000 times as much sensitivity as the original.
Hayden has a long-standing interest in energy, stemming from before the OPEC oil embargoes of the 70s. Presently, he publishes a monthly newsletter, The Energy Advocate, which in August 2022 began its 27th year of publication.