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)
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 carry out an experiment with special attention to systematic and statistical measurement errors,
- how to model data from that experiment and understand errors on model parameters,
- and how to present your work through scientific writing.
These three aspects essentially define the course.
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 2011 Groups list.
Schedule
Lab times: Mondays 10:00-12:50, 13:30-16:20.
Each lab takes two weeks.
- Jan 31
- Introductory Lecture; Photoelectric Effect
- Feb 7
- First Lab; Photoelectric report due
- Feb 14
- First Lab Presentations, Latex Tutorial
- Feb 21
- Second Lab Begins, First Report (Draft) Submitted
- Feb 28
- Second Lab Presentations, First Report (Draft) Returned
- Mar 7
- Third Lab Begins, Second Report (Draft) Submitted, First Report (Final) Submitted
- Mar 14
- Third Lab Presentations, Second Report (Draft) Returned
- Mar 21
- Spring Break
- Mar 29
- Fourth Lab Begins, Third Report (Draft) Submitted, Second Report (Final) Submitted
- Apr 4
- Fourth Lab Presentations, Third Report (Draft) Returned
- Apr 12
- Fifth Lab Begins, Third Report (Final) Submitted, Fourth Report (Final) Submitted
- Apr 18
- Fifth Lab Presentations
- Apr 26
- Sixth Lab Begins, Fifth Report Submitted
- May 2
- Sixth Lab Presentations
- May 10
- Sixth Report Submitted
Grading
Grades breakdown as
- 80% Labs
- 10% Preparation,
- 10% Tutorials/Background Work
Collaboration Policy
Execution of the experiment is a group effort, so is necessarily collaborative. Furthermore, students are encourage 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. See http://www.jhu.edu/design/oliver/academic_manual/ethics.html.
Work Submission
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 "submitted" date in the schedule above. Each student is allowed one late report, which may be up to one week late.
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.
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: