Physics 111 Laboratory

Fall 2012

Professor:     Scott M. LaBrake, Ph.D.                                    Course:  Physics 111 Lab          

Email:               labrakes@union.edu                                           Phone:    388-6053 & 6562

Office Hours:    MWF  1:00^pm – 3:00^pm                                          Office:    S&E N331 & N008B 

                         Th 8:00^am – 12:00^pm

                         By Appointment

Web:                http://minerva.union.edu/labrakes

Professor:     Samuel Amanuel, Ph.D.                                  Course:  Physics 111 Lab          

Email:               amanuels@union.edu                                        Phone:    388-6786

Office Hours:    M,Th  2:00^pm – 3:30^pm                                            Office:    S&E N316

                         By Appointment

Web:                http://minerva.union.edu/amanuels

Course: 

This course serves as an introduction to those basic concepts of physics that form the foundation of all the natural sciences.  The second of a two-course sequence in Physics for the Life Sciences, this course serves to introduce the student to the fundamental laws of electricity, magenetism, optics and nuclear physics. These laws are applied to a variety of simple systems including many from the biological sciences.  Throughout the course the conservation laws serve as unifying physical principles.  Mathematics, a powerful tool in the understanding of natural phenomena, assumes its natural role.

Attendance/Expectations: 

·              Attendance is mandatory!  It is expected that you will attend lab at your scheduled time and be present for the duration of the laboratory time.  If you cannot attend a lab class then it is your responsibility to notify the instructor a minimum of 48 hours in advance.  Do not assume that you may merely attend the other section.  The instructor reserves the right to ask you to leave and come to a make-up session at a time convenient for the instructor. 

·              In order to pass physics 111 you must obtain a passing grade in lab.  In order to do this, you need to do more than just attend the labs.  You need to hand in a written report for every laboratory exercise that you perform.  If you do not attend a lab then you cannot hand in a report.  In short you may not just “take someone else’s data.” 

·              Your participation in the completion of the laboratory will be factored into your final grade.  This means that you should not just sit idly by and let your lab partner perform the lab.  Further, it is the responsibility of the student to have with you at the start of the laboratory, a copy of the week’s laboratory exercise.  The instructor will not provide copies.

·              Make sure that you have copies of all necessary data or graphs to complete the labs before you leave the lab.  Not having the data or graphs is no excuse for not having the lab completed on time. 

·              Further it will be expected that you will have your calculator, textbook and a copy of the lab with you at every laboratory exercise. 

·              Laboratory sections will be capped at 18. 

Course Grade: 

Your numerical laboratory grade will be determined based on a professional judgment of your work on the following scale:

                        Abstract                      5 points

                        Introduction              10 points

                        Theory                      20 points

                        Procedure                 10 points

                        Results                      40 points

                        Conclusion               15 points

•      The due date will be announced in the laboratory class as well as posted with the assignment below.
•      The writing assignments for the lab can be emailed to me, handed in to me in person, or left in my mailbox in the physics department office.
•      Writing assignments are on the dates as noted below. Late writing assignments will be accepted with a penalty of 15% per day.  This includes weekends.

Honor Code: 

Union College recognizes the need to create an environment of mutual trust as part of its educational mission. Responsible participation in an academic community requires respect for and acknowledgement of the thoughts and work of others, whether expressed in the present or in some distant time and place. Matriculation at the College is taken to signify implicit agreement with the Academic Honor Code, available at honorcode.union.edu. It is each student's responsibility to ensure that submitted work is his or her own and does not involve any form of academic misconduct. Students are expected to ask their course instructors for clarification regarding, but not limited to, collaboration, citations, and plagiarism. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaching academic integrity.

For Physics 111 laboratory, any written work, calculations, computer generated code, interpretations of data/graphs must be your own work and a reflection of your understanding of the material. Data and any graphs made from the data taken may be created with your lab partner only. Please cite your lab partner when submitting any data or graphs.

Students are also required to affix the full Honor Code Affirmation, or the following shortened version, on each item of coursework submitted for grading: ``I affirm that I have carried out my academic endeavors with full academic honesty.'' [Signed, Jane Doe]

Recitation: 

Brief outline of the theory and techniques necessary for successful completion of the lab will be given promptly at the start of the lab.  It is the responsibility of the student to be ready (know the background theory, have read the laboratory ahead of time and worked out any pre-lab materials) when the laboratory class starts.  Occasionally the start of the lab class will be used as a short lecture class.  In other words, I may use the beginning of the lab class as a time to lecture on the theory behind a topic pertaining to class, but not covered in detail in class.

General sections of a Lab Report :

• Abstract:  Brief statement of the method used and the results obtained with uncertainties and comparisons to accepted values (if applicable).
• Introduction/Historical Background:  Discuss motivation for the experiment. This section serves primarily to help the reader understand the significance of the experiment and all the issues that are later addressed. The main questions to be addressed in this section of the report are “Why are you doing this experiment?” and “What do you hope to find?” (Please note that “We’re doing this experiment to illustrate the concepts discussed in class,” while true, is not an adequate answer to the first question. When writing the report, pretend that you have chosen to do the experiment of your own free will, motivated by scientific curiosity, rather than having the experiment forced upon you by the inhuman taskmasters of the Physics Department.)  

Many of the labs we will do this term are recreations of experiments that were crucial to the development of physics.  For these labs you should include a section placing the experiment in its historical context.  In particular, discuss when the experiment first took place, the prevailing physics ideas related to the experiment, how the results were interpreted, and what effect the experiment had on the physics of the time.

• Theory:  If the experiment is designed to test a particular physical theory discussed in class, you should explain in sufficient detail both the general theory and the particular prediction you’re attempting to check in the Introduction. You do not need to supply every step of a particular derivation.  (It suffices to say, for example, taking equation 2, we multiply by 2, solve for the variable x and substitute the result into equation 1.)  This section is often the most difficult to write, and you may want to try writing this section last, since you want to be sure to introduce any important concepts that are needed for your discussion in later sections.
• Procedure:  Describe your set-up (drawings are usually needed) and the method used. Do not just restructure the instructions in the lab hand-out, and do not assume that your reader has read the lab hand-out.  Make sure you describe the apparatus before referring to parts of it. A Procedure section which starts out “We moved the cart back and forth on the track and recorded the position with the sensor” will be incomprehensible to a reader who was not in your class. You need to tell the reader that the apparatus consisted of a cart, a track, and a sensor, and also what kind of cart, track, and sensor you used. Including a sketch of the apparatus is not sufficient description; you must also describe the apparatus briefly in words.
• Results:  Present your data and calculations. This is the meat of your report.

First present the raw data. Numerical data should be listed in a table and the table referred to in the text; graphical data (for example, position vs. time plots from Science Workshop) should be presented as figures and referred to in the text. Be sure to include uncertainties in any measured quantities.

After presenting the raw data, discuss any calculations that you made from that data. If there are results of calculations that would be best presented in a table, make sure they are clearly distinguishable from the raw data, either by putting the processed data in a separate table, or by clearly labeling the columns. If there are results that would be best presented in a figure, label the figure clearly, and be sure to refer to it in the text. Be sure to label the tables and figures and to refer to them in the text by name (e.g. “Figure 1”, “Table 2”). Don't include a figure without discussing it in the text. Explain the relevance of the figure, and what it tells you about the experiment.

Discuss your errors in this section. Discuss the sources of error, both random and systematic, and how the errors affect your results. Do not put off the discussion of the error until the Conclusion section.

• Discussion/Conclusion:  If there are further interpretations of the results or significant implications to be discussed, such a discussion should occur in this section. You must also summarize the main results of the experiment.

This is where you should discuss the implications of the comparison between experiment and theory (Does your measurement agree with the theoretical prediction? If so, what does that tell you? If not, why not?) , or between two different methods of measurement (If you measured the same quantity in two different ways, which measurement was more accurate?). Address any additional ideas you have about the experiment, such as improvements that could be made, or how the experiment relates to the material discussed in class.

Additional Comments:

• All numbers in Physics need to have units attached.
• All equations need to be typed, have an equation number (Word has a built-in equation editor) and be referred to by that number in the text of the report.  Do not hand-write equations.
• All graphs need to have a descriptive title, a figure number with caption, and the axes need to be labeled.
• All graphs and tables need to be in the body of the text, not attached at the end of the report.
• Grammar and spelling count.
• The lab report should look something like a scientific paper submitted for consideration of publication.
• Assume that the reader of your report has neither a lab handout nor knows anything about the topic you performed.
• DO NOT include subjective statements about your feelings or thoughts in the lab report.  For example, don’t write “This lab was sort of hard for me” or “I learned a lot in this lab” or “our results were pretty good”.
• DO NOT use the term “human error”. It is a vague “catch-all” which does’t convey any useful information.  When you discuss errors and uncertainties, try to be as specific as possible. Vague expressions like “pretty good” and “close enough” are to be avoided.  If you can compare your result with an expected or accepted value, note whether the expected value falls within the experimental range predicted.  If it doesn't, try to track down where the problem lies and describe your findings in the discussion.  NEVER attribute lack of agreement to calculation error!
• Lab reports need to be written in a clear, logical, succinct manner and contain sufficient detail so that the reader understands what you have done.
• Lab topics, or variations of lab topics, may be tested on in-class exams or quizzes.
• To get the highest grade possible, you need to demonstrate a clear mastery of the topic at hand.  It is not simply enough just to report on only what the lab handout asks.  You need to suggest further experiments that could be done.  Perform additional calculations/extensions of the experiment that could be reasonably expected.
• Since the report is a record of what you did, it should be in the past tense.
• Do not wait until the night before the lab is due to start writing it.
• Come and see me often for help.
• The short writing assignments and formal lab reports will be collected electronically.  Please email me your completed lab by the date and time due.
• If possible, please write your lab reports in Microsoft^© Word or the like.  If I cannot open your document I will not grade it.  If you write your lab reports in another format, that is fine.  Please provide me with a means of opening and displaying your document.
• All pictures, drawings, tables, and graphs need to be submitted in the document of the lab report.  Please do not submit your electronic lab report with out them included or the lab report will be considered late. 

Lab Schedule

Week 1            No Lab

Week 2            The Electrostatic Force: Coulomb's Law                           (Experiment Performed on Tuesday, September 13, 2012. Report due on or before Tuesday, September 20, 2012)

Week 3            No Lab                                       

Week 4            Circuits I: Resistor - Capacitor Circuits                              (Experiment Performed on Tuesday, September 27, 2012. Report due on or before Tuesday, October 4, 2012)                 

Week 5            Circuits II: Current, Voltage & Resistance                         (Experiment Performed on Tuesday, October 4, 2012. Report due on or before Tuesday, October 11, 2012)    

Week 6            The Charge to Mass Ratio of the electron                          (Experiment Performed on Tuesday, October 11, 2012. Report due on or before Tuesday, September 18, 2012)           

Week 7            No Lab

Week 8            Geometric Optics                                                               (Experiment Performed on Tuesday, October 25, 2012. Report due on or before Tuesday, November 1, 2012)

Week 9            Wave Optics                                                                      (Experiment Performed on Tuesday, November 1, 2012. Report due on or before Tuesday, November 8, 2012)

Week 10          The Radioactive Decay of Barium                                    (Experiment Performed on Tuesday, November 8, 2012. Report will be turned in at the end of the laboratory period.)