Syllabus for
PHY251
Fall 2008
LABORATORY
REQUIREMENTS
- Text: Course packs for PHY251 are available at the Spartan Bookstore in the International Center or may be purchased online at www.spartanbook.com. You must bring your lab manual with you to lab each week.
- Calculator: Trigonometric and logarithmic functions are required. Statistics functions will be very useful, but are not required.
- PHY 251 on the Web : http//www.pa.msu.edu/courses/current/PHY251
SCHEDULE
PHY251 labs will begin on September 8
PREPARATION FOR THE LAB SESSIONS
It is essential to prepare for lab ahead of time, i.e.
read and study the materials for the laboratories before you come to
class. Being prepared before you come to your lab session will enable you
to finish on time, enjoy the lab more and help you get a higher grade. During
the first 10 minutes of every lab period (including the first lab) a closed book quiz will be
given aimed at testing your readiness
to perform that day's experiment and/or your understanding of the previous experiment.
Please arrive on time
or you will miss the quiz and the credit. All the materials to be graded
(including data sheets, graphs, answers to questions, etc.)
must be completed during the one hour and 50 minute lab period and handed in to the instructor before
you leave the lab.
The lab report will consist of a data sheet in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, formula view of the Excel spreadsheet, graphs with observations and answers to the questions in the manual. Write your name, your student number, lab partner's name and section number on the top sheet of your lab write-up.
The week before each practical exam you will be given a write-up which explains exactly what will be covered on that lab. The practical lab will be based on one of the experiments that you have already completed. It will consist of measuring and analyzing data plus answering a set of questions. During the practical exam no outside notes, calculators or discussions with other students are allowed. The time limit on the practical lab will be 45 minutes.
GRADES
Labs will be graded by your instructor on a
20 point scale and will be handed back at the beginning of the next lab. The
points will be distributed roughly as follows: quiz (4 pts), acquisition of data including accuracy
(5 pts), graphs and calculations (5 pts), answers to questions (6 pts) .
Practical labs will not have an associated quiz and will be worth 20 points.
Your grade will be based on the total number of points during the semester. Since the instructors for the various sections do not necessarily grade identically, the scores for a given instructor's sections will be considered as a group for grading purposes. Each of the groups will receive approximately the same average grade in the course, so that there is no advantage to having one instructor rather than another. Within the group, the grades will be assigned strictly in order of points achieved. The grade will be assigned by a curve, not a "straight scale". In the past, the average for the course was about 2.6. Please obtain from your instructor and save your graded lab reports and quizzes. You will need all of these, if you think your score wasn't correctly calculated at the end of the semester.
MISSING LABS/MAKE-UP LABS
Because personally participating in each lab experiment is an essential part
of this course, you must be present for each session. Should you find yourself
in a position where you must miss a lab, you must inform your instructor at least one week
beforehand, and provide an explanatory note with suitable documentation. Make-up labs will be limited to
attending another lab section during that same week that has less than 20 students enrolled. Please note that
most of the sections are full so it may not be possible to accommodate a make-up. If you miss a lab for an
unanticipated reason, such as illness, you must notify your lab instructor no later than 24 hours
after the missed lab and provide suitable documentation (i.e. a note from your doctor). If a make-up lab
is granted your lab instructor will make the arrangements and tell you which section to attend. Your
lab report must specify your usual instructor so that the make-up TA can forward your lab write-up to
the correct instructor. It is the student's responsibility to verify this communication. To ease
the burden on students who miss a lab due to a legitimate reason, we will drop the lowest lab
score of the semester before computing your grade. An unexcused absence will not be considered as your
lowest score.
Your lab instructor is in charge of all aspects of laboratory procedures. Please confer with your instructor if you have a problem, since he or she can ordinarily solve them. Communications regarding the day-to-day operations of your section (i.e. a missed lab) should be directed to your instructor and NOT the lab coordinator. You can find a schedule of the instructors for given lab sections and their email addresses here .
The laboratory coordinators for this course are Prof. Bromberg and Prof. Tollefson. Appointments with the coordinators may be arranged by sending e-mail to bromberg@pa.msu.edu and tollefson@pa.msu.edu.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS AND HINTS:
- No food or drinks of any kind are allowed in the labs...there are no exceptions.
- Bring a flash memory stick so you can save your files as you work. There is no space on the computers to save your lab files!
- SAVE YOUR DATA OFTEN!! If something happens to your work during the lab and it is destroyed, you will have to start the lab over again.
- All the necessary computer software and spreadsheets will be on the computer when you start, so you should not have to search for them.
HINTS ON HOW TO WRITE A GOOD LAB REPORT:
- Whenever your lab report includes a table of data from Excel, write down enough information so the reader knows where the data came from. If some of the columns include the results of a calculation performed within Excel, write down the formula next to the spreadsheet, including the values of any fixed parameters used in the formula. Also include a sample calculation showing what Excel did for one line of the spreadsheet.
- Whenever your lab report includes a graph, write down what you learned from the graph, or any conclusions you made from looking at the graph on the graph itself.
- If the results didn't come out as you expected suggest why not, but don't just attribute it to "human error"!
COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS 251
Computers will be used in every lab and are controlled by a central server. It is your responsibility to close all applications and log-out of your computer account when you leave the laboratory. These computers only have access to PHY251 material and cannot be used to read email, surf the Internet, etc.
The basic software tools you will use in PHY251 are:
I. Microsoft Excel
This is a spreadsheet
program which you use to record/store your data. An empty spreadsheet is
available at the start of each lab. The program allows you to do ALL
calculations on your data. This tool removes all repetitive calculations from
the lab, so you can concentrate on graphing and interpreting your data. However,
the spreadsheet does not do ALL the calculations for you. In order to start the
calculations you must perform at least one of them by hand. After you enter the
correct formula into the spreadsheet for that particular quantity, the program
will do all the other calculations for you.
II. Kaleidagraph
This tool is a general
plotting program. It takes its input from columns of data and allows you to
either plot a histogram of the contents of one column and/or graph any column
versus any other column. Although some of these things are possible in Excel,
Kaleidagraph has a very user friendly interface for
adjusting labels, titles, etc. on any of the graphs. The input for the
graphs is copied/pasted from the Excel spreadsheet.
Once you are satisfied with your graph (binning is correct, labels are clear,
axis are labeled and have units!!), it can then be
print out or saved to a thumbdrive.