ISP209L Fall 2007 – Mystery of the Physical World Laboratory

Lab web site: http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/ISP209L/

 

            Prof. Simon Billinge, 4268 BPS                            Office Hours: by appointment, 4268 BPS

             Phone: 355-9200 x 2202                                     Email: billinge@pa.msu.edu

 

 

Section 1:  Monday 09:10 AM  - 12:00 PM           Instructors: J. Clifford

Section 2:  Monday 12:40 PM  - 03:30 PM           Instructors: Prof Billinge, Dr. E. Bozin and Dr. P. Juhas

Section 3:  Monday 04:10 PM  - 07:00 PM           Instructors: J. Clifford

 

 

This two-credit laboratory provides hands-on experience to discover and reinforce basic physical phenomena.  The heart of the course consists of a series of experiments in the areas of optics, mechanical systems, and electro-magnetics.  The teaching team consists of three senior (Drs. Billinge, Bozin and Juhas) and a graduate (Jacob Clifford) instructor.  We hope that your experience in the lab is going to be a pleasant one as we work through these experiments together.

 

REQUIREMENTS

Procedures

· Labs are held in 302 North Kedzie on Monday. Prior to each lab, you are required to take a10 minute quiz. Each lab will begin with the quiz, followed by a short introductory lecture.  

· Working in groups of 2 or 3 you will then perform measurements and tabulate your data in using the appropriate pages from the ISP 209L Course Pack.  The scheduled labs are listed on the reverse side. You will be part of a different assigned group every week.

· After conducting the experiment and tabulating the data, each student will independently analyze and present the results, and answer the questions.  You are encouraged to seek help from the instructor and from other students.  However, the work you turn in should be your own.

· All material used to determine grades (data sheets, graphs, questions, etc) will be prepared by each student during the lab period and submitted for grading before leaving the lab. Because the lab must be immediately reset for the following section, students must turn in their work promptly at the end of their period. There will be no exceptions to this policy so please begin your write-ups early enough that you can finish them before the end of class.

· There will be a lab exam in the last week of class. The exam will include quiz questions, questions derived from the pre-lab lectures, and questions from the labs themselves.

 

Hardware

· Required Course Pack: ISP209L Course Pack. It was originally prepared by Prof. Stuart Tessmer. It costs ~$5 and is available exclusively at the Student Book Store (SBS) on Grand River Avenue.  You must bring it for all of the labs as it will not be possible to do the labs without the Course Pack.

 

· Required Tools: Pencil, Calculator with trigonometric functions, logarithmic functions and scientific notation.

 

 

QUIZZES & READING MATERIAL

You should read through and understand the lab before coming to class.  Quizzes will be conducted prior to each experiment during the first 10 minutes of the lab. The quizzes are closed book and will be based on material related to the lab scheduled for that day.   The quizzes will be collected all together 10 minutes after the start of class and won’t be accepted after this time, so please don’t be late so you have the best chance to complete the quiz.

 

You are expected to read through the scheduled lab procedures in advance of each class. This is needed for the lab to make sense as you work through the details. The main purpose of the quiz is to give you extra incentive to read about each lab in advance. For further assistance in preparing, additional reading material relevant for many of the labs can be found in Prof. Stump’s ISP209 Course Pack. The material from Prof. Stump’s class is not required.

 

 

ABSENCE / LATE POLICY

 

The labs are tightly scheduled and there will be no opportunities to make up a missed lab under any circumstances. If you have to miss a lab for a legitimate reason, you should inform Prof. Billinge by email (billinge@pa.msu.edu) or phone (355-9200x2202) before the lab starts.   If the problem is sickness, you should contact Prof. Billinge within 48 hrs following the lab. If only one lab is missed, no adjustments will be made as only the highest 11 of 12 quiz+lab scores count toward the final grade (see below). If more than one lab is missed with legitimate excuses, such as documented illnesses (bring Doctors note) then come and see Prof. Billinge. Unexcused absences will be a zero in the gradebook. The same applies to cases in which a student misses a lab because he/she forgot to bring the relevant pages from the course pack.

 

 

 

GRADING POLICY

The quizzes count for 3 points. The lab reports will be graded on a 0 to 7 point scale.  The total number of points possible for each lab class will be 10. The first lab will be graded and returned but will not count towards your final grade.  This is a learning example that helps you to understand our expectations for the write-up.  In addition you can drop one of the remaining (lab+quiz) scores.  Summary: there are 11 labs, the compound (lab+quiz) score from the first lab and one other (the lowest) can be dropped.  The final grade will therefore be based on the 9 highest compound scores from labs 2 – 11. 

 

Your grade will depend on your Class Percentage with the total quiz+lab score weighted by 0.80 and the lab exam weighted by 0.20. To give a formula, let's call QL=(quiz+lab total)/90 and LE=(lab exam percentage)/100. Your Class Percentage is then Class Percentage = 100*[QL*0.8 + LE*0.2]. The cutoffs to determine your final grade are given in the following table:

Class Percentage

Grade

90.00-100

4.0

85.00-89.99

3.5

80.00-84.99

3.0

75.00-79.99

2.5

70.00-74.99

2.0

65.00-69.99

1.5

50.00-64.99

1.0

00.00-49.99

0.0

 

 

TO DO WELL IN THIS COURSE

Since the labs are fairly straightforward, if you give it an honest effort doing all the quizzes and attending all the labs you will get a strong quiz+lab score. Typically it is also necessary to do well on the lab exam to get a 3.5 or a 4.0. The advice to do well on the lab exam is to spend time carefully reading and understanding the basic ideas of each lab in advance. In addition to making the lab run more smoothly, it will be more likely that the key ideas are clear. You will then be better prepared when reviewing the material for the lab exam.   

 

 

 

SCHEDULE

 

Date

Lab#

Topics

Additional Reading

Aug 27

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No Lab today

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Sep 4

Labor Day Holiday

No Lab today

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Sep 10

1

Dice-probability vs average
Human reaction times

Please check back later

Sep 17

2

Free fall measurement of g
Pendulum measurement of g

Please check back later

Sep 24

3

Threshold of hearing

Please check back later

Oct 1

4

Energy, Cycle power
Electrical equivalent of heat

Please check back later

Oct 8

5

Rolling cylinders
Angular momentum, torque

Please check back later

Oct 15

6

Simple circuits
Magnetic fields

Please check back later

Oct 22

7

Oscilloscope-wave forms
Magnetic Induction

Please check back later

Oct 29

8

Reflection, Refraction
Critical angle

Please check back later

Nov 5

9

Single slit diffraction
Babinet's principle

Please check back later

Nov 12

10

Two slit interference
Diffraction grating

Please check back later

Nov 19

11

Radioactivity

Please check back later

Nov 26

12

No Lab today

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Dec 3

13

Lab Exam

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