Experimental Physics
| Credits | 3 |
| Time | Fri 1:30-4:50 |
| Place | Brown Science/Sci 117 and 117A |
| Level | Multi-Level |
| Faculty | Salimbeni |
| Office Hours: | by appointment (M, W, Th, F)
|
| Tutor | to be announced |
A laboratory course designed for students of various levels interested in an introduction to experimental methods in physics. Students will acquire familiarity with a variety of laboratory instruments, techniques and statistical tools. Students will also learn how to record and present your observations and results. Experiments on Mechanics and Thermodynamics will be proposed to students at the introductory level, experiments on Modern Physics will be proposed to more advanced students.
Prerequisite: General Physics I or permission of the instructor
Textbook
An Introduction to Error Analysis, second edition by John R. Taylor
Student Accessibility
This course will honor all reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. If you have a disability that requires specific accommodation, please contact Catherine O’Callaghan, Assistant Dean of Academic Advising & Support (cocallag@marlboro.edu). Catherine will convene the ADA committee to review documentation and determine what accommodations are warranted. Catherine will then provide a letter to faculty outlining reasonable accommodations. It is your responsibility to engage in this process; i.e., disclose your disability, provide documentation, request accommodations, and deliver the accommodations letter to your faculty.
Course Policies & Grading
Attendance and Participation
You are strongly encouraged to attend class. Most of the work for this course will be done during the class period, so attendance is essential for your success in this course. Since you will work in groups for most of the semester, absenteeism will affect your classmates performance as well. You are allowed to miss 1 class for emergency reasons (illness, family emergencies, religious observance, homework overload etc.) without the need to report to me. However, your final grade will drop by 7 points for each absences beyond the first. When you miss a class it will be your responsibility to make up the work done in your absence. You will not receive any credit for this course if you miss more than a total of 3 classes. Arriving late to class is a disruptive behavior and affects yours and other students' learning experience. Please, come on time to class. Three late arrivals will be considered an absence.
Readings, Participation and Pre-class assignments
I hope you will participate and collaborate with other students during class discussions, group work and experiments, this is the best way of learning the material in this course. You are encouraged to come to class prepared to discuss the material and ask questions. Reading the material is critical for having a productive class time, failing to prepare will affect the learning of you and your classmates. To help you with the reading I will assign pre-class questions that will be discussed during class time. Readings, quality of participation and pre-class assignments are part of your grade (20% of the grade).
Homework
During the semester you will be assigned some homework to support the reading (20% of the grade), however most you your energy will be focused on writing the reports of experiments performed in class (60% of the grade). You will be required to write some of these reports as a group effort and some as individual work.
Plagiarism
Academic Honesty is expected of all scientists, and also of all students. Cheating on homework or the final exam will result in no credit.
If you are not sure on how to use a source, please check this
link on the library webpage.
Grading
Grade Letters
The green represents the range of numerical grades that corresponds to the letter grade
Tentative Schedule
In the first part of the semester we will be studying some of the concepts behind error analysis and we will perform some simple experiments to apply these concepts and to understand how to write a report. In the second part of the semester you will use the skills you developed to perform three more advanced experiments.
month week topic
----- ---- ------
Jan 0 - Error Analysis and the Use of Uncertainties - Experiment on Hook’s law
1 - Propagation of Uncertainties - Measurement of density
Feb 2 - Statistical Analysis and Random Uncertainties - Measurement of the Constant of Gravity
3 - Least-Square Fitting - Photoelectric effect
4 - Measuring the Speed of Light
Mar 5 - Measuring the Speed of Light
6 - Measuring the Speed of Light
7 - Gravitational Torsion balance
April 8 - Gravitational Torsion balance
9 - Gravitational Torsion balance
10 - Black Body Radiation
11 - Black Body Radiation
May 12 - Black Body Radiation
