The department was established in 1977 on the initiative of the BPI Rector, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor V.D. Tkachev. The first head of the department was elected in 1978, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor D.S. Domanevsky.
At the initial stage (until 1984), the department was entrusted with organizing the training of engineers in the specialty "Technology of Optical Production" and teaching a course in general physics to students of several faculties. The staff of the department created and repeatedly upgraded 8 educational laboratories, including: three laboratories for providing general education in the course of general physics and special laboratories for training optical production technologists, such as thin film technology, processing of optical parts, alignment of optical systems, general technology and etc.
Currently, the staff of the Department of Experimental and Theoretical Physics provides fundamental training in the course of general physics (mechanics, molecular physics and thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, vibrations and waves, optics, solid state physics, atomic and nuclear physics) for full-time and part-time students of instrument-making , mechanical engineering and engineering-pedagogical faculties, and also conducts a course "medical and biological physics" for students of the instrument-making faculty of full-time education. Much attention is paid to the introduction of new educational technologies based on modern methods of testing knowledge control. The total number of full-time and part-time students trained is more than 2,000 people per year.
The department has three educational laboratories for the main sections of the general physics course (about 60 educational and laboratory stands) and four educational and scientific and methodological rooms for conducting research work of students, experimental prototyping and computer modeling.
The staff of the department is developing educational and methodological tools and manuals to ensure the general education of students. The technical support of the educational process and scientific research of the department in a two-shift mode is carried out by qualified engineering personnel.
The department conducts scientific and methodological work of an innovative nature with students and students of technical classes of BNTU. One of these forms is the performance by pupils and students of research papers in physics, the topics of which are beyond the scope of curricula. The main form of organizing and conducting research work at the Department of ETF is the individual scientific guidance by teachers of the research work of individual students involved in it during extracurricular time.
