Physical Sciences Dept. comprising Maths, Physics and Chemistry was established in the year 1853. Physics Dept. was blossomed as a separate science dept. with the able leadership of Prof. W.L. Wilson in the year 1875 after the bifurcation of physical sciences. The Department has great culture and heritage of imparting education and sharing responsibility of producing valuable citizens in the level of executives to serve the nation. Sir C. V. Raman (Alumni-1902-1907) and Prof. S. Chandrasekhar (Alumni- 1920-1925) awarded with a famous Nobel Laureate and brought laurel to the nation and the Presidency College and these incidents have kindled a lot of scientific ideas and the establishment of various labs at national level. The other notable alumnus are a former Scientific advisor Chidambaram (1953 - 1956), former IG of Tamilnadu. R. Natraj (1971-1972) who also served as chairman of TNPSC and being serving currently as M.L.A. for Mylapore constituency. Former H.O.D of Physics H. Parameshwaran have discovered diffusion pump the same is being called as Waran pump after his name and also he designed and installed the college tower clock in the year 1940 as the mark of centenary year of Presidency College. Physics Dept. is DST-FIST sponsored dept. Six Major projects and 5 minor projects have been sanctioned to Physics Dept by DST, UGC and CSIR funding agencies. As a result of the project funds the research instruments such as UV-Vis spectrometer, Vickers Microhardness Tester, Furnace, Spin coating unit, and CTB with cryostat facility have been procured and installed in the Physics dept. Research activity is taking place at a rate of awarding min. 10 Ph.D scholars per year consistently for the past five years and in total 145 candidates have obtained Ph.D degrees since 1970 to till date. Moreover every year the Physics Dept. producing 12 M.Phil graduates, 20 M.Sc graduates and 60 B.Sc graduates. 465 publications have been published in peer reviewed in international journals. The Physics dept. caters the education needs of socially weaker sections of the students. Five faculties have cleared NET/SLET examinations and other four have completed Post Doctoral Fellowships and got exposure of working in international research labs like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Six Research Scholars have been receiving national fellowships awards to pursue Ph.D degree. A Few other state students have studied B.Sc and M.Sc courses in Physics Dept belonging to native state of West Bengal and Kerala. Recently students who wish to study science stream as an alternate to Engg. Course preferred Presidency College. As an example recently passed +2 students whose cut-off 190 and above have chosen their course of choice as Physics.