PHYS 244 COLLEGE PHYSICS LAB I



PHYS 246 COLLEGE PHYSICS LAB

Summer, 2003

Schedule of Experiments

S. Fisher

J. Lieb

Date Performed Experiment

06/30 Electronic Measurements and Uncertainties (Handout)

07/02 Electric Field Mapping

07/04 July 4 Holiday

07/07 The Capacitor

07/09 DC Circuits, Ohm’s Law and Multimeters

07/11 Kirchhoff’s Laws (Last day to drop)

07/14 RC Decay

07/16 AC Circuits and Induction

07/18 Reflection and Refraction of Light

07/21 Thin Lenses

07/23 Spectrophotometer and Atomic Spectra of

Hydrogen

7/25 Gamma Ray Energy and Absorption

7/28 Quiz

Text: Physics 246 Lab Manual.

Laboratory Policies and Guidelines.

Goals and Requirements for the Course:

To help the student develop the ability to perform scientific experiments and to enhance student understanding of related theoretical material presented in PHYS 245. This will be accomplished by performing key experiments with emphasis on the presentation and interpretation of experimental data. Such data will be assessed within the context of experimental uncertainties.

Students will be required to make use of computer-generated graphs and tables for displaying and analyzing experimental data. This will be done using Excel as well as other software packages, such as DataStudio. To this end, each laboratory station is equipped with PC and requisite software. Additional computing facilities are available on campus for students who require more time, but do not have access to software at home.

Lab Groups:

Students will work in groups of 2 or 3 students. Each member of the group must be involved in the entire experiment.

Lab Reports:

Each student are required to submit a lab report for each experiment. This report must be an individual effort’s work that reflects the student’s understanding of the experiment. Direct copying of another students report is plagiarism and is a violation of the GMU honor code. Reports will be turned into the instructor at the start of the next scheduled lab session. Late reports will be penalized 10% per session.

Makeup Labs:

Since one lab grade is dropped, there are NO makeup labs for missed experiments. However, and under extreme cases only, if you know that you will not be able to attend your session on a particular day, you may, with prior notification of your instructor, obtain permission to attend another session if possible. This will also require authorization from the instructor of the session you wish to attend. Please do not just show up to a different lab session without prior approval of both instructors. Any student who misses a lab may NOT submit a lab report.

Pre-Lab Lecture:

There is an introductory lecture at the beginning of each lab session. It is expected that all students arrive on time and not miss any portion of this lecture. After the lecture, students work in their groups and conduct the experiment scheduled for that day. Students are urged to finish most of their calculations and error analysis in the lab. All students are required to have the instructor initial their raw data sheet before leaving the lab for the day. Students who miss most of the pre-lab lecture WILL NOT be allowed to conduct the experiment for that particular lab. Students who are more than 10 minutes late will be penalized 10 % if it occurs more than once.

Format for Lab Reports:

Each member of a group must submit a laboratory report, preferably typed, or neatly handwritten in his/her own words. The basic format is shown below. The percentages assigned to each part are only average and may vary slightly depending on the experiment.

1. Title Page (5%)

Includes:

1. Your name (Principal Author)

2. Course name

3. Experiment title and number

4. Lab partners’ names

5. Date report was submitted

6. Instructor’s name.

Staple entire report in the upper left hand corner.

2. Introduction and Equation Review (20%)

State the purpose of the experiment, briefly explain the hardware and software

that will be used to conduct the experiment. Present all necessary equations with

explanation of each variable and the corresponding units.

3. Data Tables and Graphs (30%)

Tables Data collected during the experiment should be shown in data tables within the body of the lab report. Tables should have columns that tell the readers not only what values they are looking at, such as “length” or “time” but also the units that correspond to the data. The instructor should be able to read the body of the report and see all relevant values and their associated uncertainties without having to view the hand-written sample calculation (see Section 4 below).

Graphs. The proper presentation of graphs requires various elements. The graph needs to be readable to the instructor. The scaling must be adequate to fully display the properties of the curve (i.e. the curve must cover the majority of the graph area), and all labels such as graph titles and axis labels must show quantities plotted with proper units. If curve fitting , such as a linear fit, is required, then the graph must also display the fitted equation along with the goodness of fit (R2) value.

4. Sample Calculations with Error Analysis. (20%)

This section is to be handwritten. Include one sample of EACH type of calculations performed in the lab. It is understood that most of the calculations will be done for you in Excel, but it should be realized that YOU must tell Excel the correct calculation to perform. Thus, one hand calculation must be turned in for each different type of calculation. Note that a sample calculation must show the equation symbolically, and then replace algebraic variables with numbers, and give the final answer. You must also include an uncertainty calculation if the data has an uncertainty associated with its value. You should refer to the uncertainty calculations in the introductory chapter of the lab manual to see the amount of detail that must be provided with a sample calculation.

5. Discussion and Conclusions. (20%)

This is a very important part of the report. Summarize what you did in this experiment, what measurements were made and why. Discuss whether or not you obtained meaningful results based on the objectives you outlined in the Introduction. Explain the sources of errors in this experiment and try to classify each as systematic, human or random errors. You should also explain any significant problems you encountered and how these were resolved. State the values of the physical quantities measured along with their uncertainties. You should use your data, graphs and calculations to support whatever conclusions are made here.

6. Raw Data Sheet (5%)

This is simply the original data taken on the day of the experiment. Your instructor must sign this sheet before you leave the lab. No changes should exist between this data and the data presented in the lab report.

Grade Components: Each assignment will be graded on a scale of 100%. For computing

final grades, the grades will be scaled as follows:

Nine best labs out of ten: 84% (@ 9.33% each)

Electronics Measurements and Uncertainties: 4%

Quiz: 12 %

Students who miss the Electronics Measurements and Uncertainties lab will have their quiz count 16%.

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