Laboratory Information

General Physics III labs will meet weekly in S215 beginning the week of 7 Feb 2000.
There will be no labs on the first week of classes.

Tentative Plan:

Week 1: Lab 1: The Simple Pendulum and Uncertainty Calculations
Week 2: Lab 2: Modeling a Rotational/Translational System
Week 3: >> Lab 2: Continued.
Week 4: Lab 3: Young's Modulus
Week 5: Lab 4: Archimedes' Principle
Week 6: Midterm week - Lab writeups due at end of week; all labs to this point completed.
Week 7: Lab 5: Heat of Fusion
Week 8: Lab 6: Thermal Conductivity (either insulator or conductor)
Week 9: Lab 6: Thermal Conductivity (either insulator or conductor - whichever one you did NOT do last week.)

Formal Laboratory Writeups

As mentioned in the syllabus, you will be required to submit two formal laboratory writeups during the term. One will be due on Friday, 17 March 2000, and the other on the last day of classes - 12 May 2000. The first can be on any of the labs prior to mid term ( i.e. spring break week). The second must be on a laboratory experiment carried out after mid term.

Guidelines for Formal Laboratory Writeups:
Reports should be word-processed, double spaced, clearly written, and well organized. They should adhere to standard scientific paper format. For examples, see a copy of The American Journal of Physics (we carry this journal in our library). You may also be interested in the Guidelines for Contributors at the American Journal of Physics Web site. In general, the report should consist of an abstract, an introduction, an explanation of the experimental technique, a presentation of the data, analysis of the data, and a discussion of the results. Divide the paper in to sections, as appropriate for your particular experiment. The paper should end with a well-formulated conclusion section. Be sure to write the abstract after you have written the rest of the report! All graphs must be produced with a spreadsheet or similar type software package. A well-formatted table is an excellent way to present raw data from your experiment. Diagrams produced with a paint program are preferred (but not required). An analysis of the uncertainties in your experiment will be expected; report all data with appropriate error bars. Appearance and content are both very important; insure that your report is complete and professional. Please refrain from using any fancy report covers.

For best results, have a classmate proofread your report!

Grading

The laboratory will make up for 20 % of the course grade. This 20 % will be distributed as follows: 14 % will be for the complete lab notebook at the end of the term and 6 % will be for the two formal laboratory writeups.

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This page was last updated on 09/03/2003 .