2012

Instructors

Professor: Tobias Marriage (marriage@pha.jhu.edu), Office: Bloomberg 215

TAs: Christopher Brust (cbrust@pha.jhu.edu), Sean Cantrell (seancan@pha.jhu.edu)

Lab Guru: Steve Wonnell (wonnell@pha.jhu.edu)

Wiki

You'll need a wiki login to sign up for groups and labs. Also you are welcome to augment the experiment wiki pages with additional links/comments etc. To get a wiki login: Click "log in" at the top right and then click "request one". You'll need to fill out a form and then administrators authorize your use (if they so choose).

General Description

Welcome to the Advanced Physics Lab. In this class, you will carry out six experiments, some of which helped form the basis for modern physics. More importantly, you'll learn

• how to conduct an experiment with special attention to estimating systematic and statistical measurement errors,
• how to model the data/understand the goodness of fit (<math>\chi^2 </math>) and errors on model parameters,
• and how to present your work through scientific writing.

These three aspects essentially define the course. Each lab will be evaluated based on how well the three aspects are realized.

Groups

Labs are done in groups. In the first week students divide into 10 groups of 2-3 students each. Sign onto the wiki and add your names to the groups list.

Schedule

Lab times: Mondays 10:00-12:50, 13:30-16:20. You may come to either (or both) class periods. This is essentially when the professor and TAs will be available (note both TAs will not be present at both sessions). Each lab takes two weeks and therefore has two associated lab periods.

First Lab Period. Before the first lab period you should write an overview of the experiment and the procedure (essentially a draft of the introduction and the experiment sections of your report). Bring this to the lab to discuss the experiment with the professor and/or the TAs (Also they will "check off" your progress as part of the participation grade). In the first lab period you also take a first pass at experiment and data taking.

Second Lab Period. The next week you should have an initial analysis done of your data. You should bring a draft of your report with an initial data analysis section and any preliminary discussion. You should come to the lab in order to discuss your results with the professor and/or TAs.

The semester goes as follows. Unless noted otherwise below, final drafts of lab reports are due at midnight the day before the next lab begins.

Jan 30: Welcome Lecture

Feb 06: First Lab Begins

Feb 13: Latex Tutorial

Feb 20: Second Lab Begins

Mar 05: Third Lab Begins (Mar 19-23 is Spring Break)

Mar 26: Fourth Lab Begins

Apr 09: Fifth Lab Begins

Apr 23: Sixth Lab Begins (Due the day after reading period)

Labs

Responsibility for assistance and grading of labs will be split between the professor and TAs.

The labs are done in groups according to the following schedule:

Schedule 2012

Safety

Use your common sense in all situations. In these labs you'll encounter high magnetic fields (don't handle ferrous metals near them), weak radioactive materials (respect them), lasers (where protective eye wear -- provided), high temperatures (don't touch them) and other manageable hazards. When in doubt: ask the professor, Steve Wonnell or a TA.

Grading

Grades breakdown as

• 80% Labs
• 20% Preparation (bring in drafts as described in Schedule)

Each lab grade will be divided into three equal sections: experiment execution (20 pts), data analysis (20 pts), and presentation (20 pts).

If you break an experiment -- you lose the experiment execution points and will be required to finish the report with the data that you have. So be careful -- use your common sense and ask questions when you suspect something might be set up wrong or otherwise might lead to breakage.

Collaboration Policy

Execution of the experiment is a group effort, so is necessarily collaborative. Furthermore, students are encouraged to discuss experiments, analysis, and other course related issues with their peers (and, of course, with the instructors). However, each person should carry out their own data analysis (e.g., no code sharing), produce their own plots, and write their own report. Violations of academic ethics (e.g., plagiarism) will be handled according to JHU Policy.

Work Submission and Late Reports

We'll utilize Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) for submission of reports: each student will have a private dropbox by which to upload course materials for submission (and by which we can share files with you). If the dropbox fails, work may be emailed in PDF format to the instructor at marriage@pha.jhu.edu.

The reports are due by midnight on the day before the next lab begins. Sometimes, circumstances are such that one cannot get a report in on time (illness, grad school visits, etc). For this reason, each student is allowed one late report, which may be up to one week late. Use this wisely! After the first instance, a late report will result in having the awarded point total multiplied by 0.5. For example, an 88% score would become a 44% score.

All reports will be returned through dropbox as soon as possible and no later than 2 weeks from the submission due date. If you are missing a report evaluation, then notify the professor immediately.

Recommended Texts

• Bevington & Robinson, Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences
• Press, Teukolsky, Vetterling, Flannery, Numerical Recipes in C (Available online)
• Lamport, LaTeX: A Document Preparation System

Lab Reports

Lab reports constitute the backbone of the course. The reports are to be created on a computer with computer generated graphics, plots, etc. The document preparation system for the reports is LaTeX. The computers in the PUC lab have various installations of LaTeX editors/compilers. You can also download freeware for your personal computers. The lab reports should have an abstract, an introduction, description of the experiment (apparatus and procedure), description of the analysis, discussion of results, a conclusion (including future directions), and a bibliography. Lab reports will be collected on even weeks (See schedule.).

The course is fast paced and you'll want to stay ahead of schedule. You should begin writing your lab report in the first week of the class. You should plan to have the introduction finished by the end of the first week together with first drafts of all figures. A standard strategy is to create your figures first in order to guide the body of the text.