PHYSICS 192
SPRING SEMESTER 2009

SYLLABUS AND SCHEDULE

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Physics 192 consists of a series of experiments in optics and modern physics.  The experiments are all described in the laboratory writeups (available as pdf files through the links below) and you are expected to read the material and prepare yourself before coming to class as there will not be sufficient time to start from scratch during the three hour laboratory session.  In general, the laboratory period will start with a brief quiz ( = 10% of lab grade) to test on preparation.

You will do the experiments in groups of two.   You may collaborate with your partner in data taking, but you are expected to do independent calculations and write independent reports.

The reference for this course is "An Introduction to Error Analysis" by John R. Taylor, published by University Science Books. Some homework will be assigned from this text. The homework will be handed in with the lab report and will comprise part of the lab report grade. The lab instruction manual, the homework and this syllabus are on the web at: http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/phy192/ . There is no coursepack; download and print from the web site.

THE COURSE GOALS:

During this course, we expect you to:
* to become familiar with some laboratory experiments and procedures.
* to make careful and critical measurements.
* to record and organize your observations.
* to estimate uncertainties in your measurements and to judge whether your measurements are consistent with previous measurements.

Before each class, you will be expected to read the description of the experiment and read sections of the book by Taylor to clarify how to perform the necessary error estimations.  This advance preparation is essential if you wish to successfully finish the lab and to solve the quiz over the lab material that will be given to you at the beginning of class.  Your laboratory measurements will be performed during class.  You should also perform calculations during class to determine whether your measurements are valid.  If you blindly take data without checking it, your grade will suffer.

LABORATORY REPORTS:

The Notebook:  You must purchase 2 lab books for this course. We will alternate the use of the two books.   You will record your original measurements in the lab books.  All calculations, answers to the questions, error estimations, etc. must be there as well. Note that these must be lab notebooks, i.e. with an x-y grid of lines. If you have an old lab notebook from a previous class that still has unused pages, it is fine to use that. There should be a page number on each page of the lab book (by hand if necessary), and pages should never be removed from the lab book. Your lab book should record your procedure as well as your results. You should be able to reconstruct for any given day what you did. It should especially explain your choices on procedure which were not specified for you in the lab handout. We suggest also stapling in the original lab handout. The lab book should also contain:
- Rough sketches of apparatus
- Estimates of errors in measurements
- “on the fly” calculations to assess quality of data

Using the experimental data taken during the lab period, you will prepare a lab report to be handed in, along with the lab book containing the data, at the beginning of the next week's lab.   In your lab report you will provide:

1.  a short description of your procedure - there is no need to duplicate the material presented in the lab write-up.  This description should include identifying material which will allow your instructor to determine the equipment and sample material used in your experiments.

2.  all your original data including the uncertainties in each measurement; you can refer to specific page numbers in your lab book**

3.  all the steps used in your data analysis including your calculations of the uncertainties in the derived quantities you calculate.**

4.  all of your results and conclusions including any graphs or tables.**

5.  answers to all questions posed in the lab write-up.

6.  a brief discussion of ways that you think the experiment could be improved.

7. the assigned homework.

**  This may also be in the form of computer printouts stapled  to the lab write-up.  Your lab report will consist of the information listed above plus your name, student number, section number, and experiment title.

Think of your lab report as being a short scientific paper; it should be readable and relatively self-contained. It should “tell a story”: what you did, and what you concluded from your work.

The parts of the lab report are:
1) Introduction: what you are measuring and why
2) Procedure: what steps you followed. For some details you can refer to your lab book, but don’t just say “we followed the lab handout”: there are choices you had to make!
3) Measurements and Results
– measured values (with uncertainties)
- calculated quantities (with uncertainties) These will often be summarized in tables.
4) Conclusions: do your results agree with theory to within uncertainty***? If not, why not? What sources of systematic errors were there in this experiment?
***The t value calculations you learned in PHY191 will often be needed.

All your work should be on the lab report - including any mistakes or duplicate measurements.  In other words, your lab report is a recording of the procedure that you went through including, any false steps. False steps should be neatly crossed out and a note should be recorded in the lab book indicating the nature of the mistake.  This is the method used by practicing scientists for the recording of their experimental measurements.

Attendance is mandatory.  If you have an excused medical absence, your instructor will determine whether you will be permitted to do a makeup or whether you will be graded on  the remaining 8 reports.

SCHEDULE AND GRADING:

The lab writeups are available as pdf files from the links shown below.

Your grade will be based on the results of your experiments, on the quality of your reports and on a practical exam. The weighting will be 1 for single-week labs, and 2 for 2-week labs, and 2 for the practical exam.

The instructor of each section will normally grade the work of students in their sections. The average grade will be approximately 3.0, for students of each instructor.