Messages from your instructor

General Information:
Laboratory: Room 115 Physics and Astronomy Building
6 hours per week

Physics 170 is a recently-developed course in EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS for first year students. The main aim of the course is to have you learn something about REAL physics as done in a research laboratory. There will be no formal lectures (or exams) so that all of your learning will be done by: (1) Reading, (2) having discussions with your lab partner and the instructors, (3) performing "hands-on" experiments.

In this course we will emphasize several aspects of experimental physics:

1. How to conceive, set-up (including some construction), and perform experiments in a few selected areas of physics.
2. How to use the computer to:

A. Acquire, graph and analyze your data.
B. Simulate your experiment.
3. How to keep a neat and meaningful laboratory notebook.
4. How to present your results in both written and oral format.

Since there will be no examinations, your grades will be determined by:

1. How you perform in the laboratory - in particular how your experimental techniques and thought processes develop as the semester progresses.
2. The quality of your lab notebook and how it develops as the semester progresses. To evaluate your progress, we will collect your notebooks both at times that are announced in advance and at other times with NO prior warning.
3. During Finals Week, each of you will have a private 20 minute discussion with the instructors in the laboratory. We'll be interested in determining what you've learned.

The experiments involve two areas of physics:

1. VACUUM PHYSICS:

1. How to produce a vacuum and what interesting physics you can do with it.
2. "The lack of a perfect vacuum has structure." Learn what this peculiar statement means.

1. How light rays are bent and optical images are formed from a single lens to a reflecting telescope. These studies will include actual experiments and computer simulations.
2. Optical spectra. Over what range of wavelengths do various light sources emit light? (lamps, lasers, the sun, etc.)
3. The electrical and optical properties of LED's (light emitting diodes).

• If anything can go wrong, it will.

• An inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at anytime in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or else completely mysterious.

• When all else fails, read the directions.

• No experiment is ever a complete failure; it can always serve as a bad example.

Professor William Pratt
Office: Room 214 Physics and Astronomy Building
Telephone: 355-9712
e-mail: pratt@pa.msu.edu