PHYSICS 192
SPRING SEMESTER 2010

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. Readings and homework will be assigned from this text. The homework will be handed in with the lab report and will comprise 10% the lab 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.

This class assumes you have learned certain skills from PHY192: using Kaleidagraph, using Excel with formulas, performing a General Fit in Kaleidagraph, performing uncertainty calculations, making error bars in Kaleidagraph, choosing an appropriate number of signficant figures, calculating the significance of a deviation from expectations by the "t-value", and using summary tables to organize and summarize your results.

LABORATORY REPORTS:

The Lab Notebook:  You must purchase a lab book for this course. Note that this must be a lab notebook, i.e. with an x-y grid of lines, bound or spiral, but not a looseleaf notebook. 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. We suggest also stapling in the original lab handout. All your work should be in the lab book - including any mistakes or duplicate measurements. In other words, your lab book is a recording of the procedure that you went through including, any false steps. You should be able to reconstruct for any given day what you did. The lab book should especially explain your choices on procedure which were not specified for you in the lab handout.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. If you felt your bad data was caused by following directions in the lab writeup, be sure to point out the problem area in your lab report.

The lab book should also contain:
- on the first page for this lab session, the name of the experiment, your name, your partner's name, and the date
- Rough sketches of apparatus
- identifying information (table number, sample code, for example) which will allow your instructor to determine the equipment and sample material used in your experiments.
- Answers to questions posed in the lab writeup intended to be answered before measurement
- a sketch of how you measured something, if it's not just reading a dial
-all your original data (write it in the book, rather than typing directly into a spreadsheet, unless a computer is directly producing the data file
- 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 photocopies of the relevant lab book pages containing the data, at the beginning of the next week's lab.   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 goal for lab report is to *explain* what you did, why, how, and what you concluded.  Your report should be a short scientific paper readable by a peer: a student in your major who didn’t perform this lab but otherwise has same general background as you.  Writing lab reports at this level is intended as practice in the kind of writing and analysis you would perform professionally on real research projects, just as keeping your lab book should build good habits for your scientific record keeping for real research projects.

Your lab report will consist of the information listed below plus your name, student number, section number, and experiment title. The parts of the lab report are:

1) Introduction: what you are measuring and why; what are the key equations you need to predict or analyze the data? What is the main result you are seeking? How are the different measurements expected to be related? There is no need to duplicate the material presented in the lab write-up. 

2) Procedure: what steps you followed. Do not just parrot the lab writeup. 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) Answers to questions posed by the lab writeup or your TA. Clearly identify your answers by Q1) ...Q3)... etc.

4) Measurements, Calculations, and Results
– measured values (with uncertainties);you can refer to specific page numbers in your lab book
- calculated quantities (with uncertainties). Give all the steps used in your data analysis including your calculations of the uncertainties in the derived quantities you calculate. These calculations are usually done in spreadsheets, which you can include in the lab report and refer to by page number. You should also email your spreadsheet to your TA. However, it should be possible to read the lab report and understand what was done without referring to the spreadsheet.

5) Conclusions: Final esults should be summarized in a table in the lab report itself: it is not sufficient to leave the reader to rummage about the spreadsheets to guess where your final answers were.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.

An example lab report is linked from the main course page. You are not required to typeset the equations in your lab report; it is acceptable to just leave a space and write them in by hand.

A typical assignment of points for grading labs is given below to give you a feeling for the emphasis on different parts of the lab report.  For specific labs with particular emphases, the relative weights may be adjusted somewhat from this general guideline.

pts
5      introduction            self-contained overview of measurements done, how related; equations as necessary.   
                                    background so fellow student could understand what you are trying to accomplish
5      procedure               what you did.  Not just “see lab book” or “see lab handout”
12    lab book:
                                    Goal: enough info so you can reconstruct what you did
                                    Appropriate sketches, procedure choices; what did you measure
                                    raw data, uncertainty assessment
                                    check calculations or plots to test data quality

10   measurement quality
                                  Goal is careful measurement
                                  Accuracy of your final results will be compared with those obtained by the TA’s
                                   and those of other students
               
10   results
                                    calculations, error analysis
                                    excel calculations and formulas used (and sample calculations if not using excel)
                                    explanation of formulas you needed to derive
                                             (refer to lab book for derivation or sketch as needed)
                                    graphs, possibly including fits, as appropriate
                                    answers to questions posed in lab writeup, or by your TA

4 drawing conclusions
                                appropriate summary tables of key results and uncertainties
                                what can you conclude, based on your results?
                                use of uncertainties, t values to back up conclusions      
                                discussion of inconsistencies/possible systematic
                                constructive suggestions for improvement of lab writeup or procedure

4   miscellaneous:  
                                 labeling of tables and graphs, units, significant figures,
                                 spelling, grammar, coherent organization of lab report

50           Total

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, for a total of 65% of the lab grade. The practical exam counts for 15% of the lab grade (a bit more than a typical 2-week lab).

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.