2014
Welcome to Advanced Physics Lab 2014!
Instructors
Professor: Tobias Marriage (marriage@pha.jhu.edu), Office: Bloomberg 215
TAs: Ian Anderson (ianderso@pha.jhu.edu), Office: Bloomberg 429
Lab Guru: Steve Wonnell (wonnell@pha.jhu.edu), Office: Bloomberg 478
Wiki
This page (https://wiki.pha.jhu.edu/advlab_wiki/index.php/2014) is your source of much course-related knowledge. Useful materials will be distributed here.
Also check out general descriptions of labs and pages for previous years at
https://wiki.pha.jhu.edu/advlab_wiki/index.php
General Description
In this class, you you'll learn
- how to conduct an experiment, collecting data with special attention to estimating systematic and statistical measurement errors,
- how to model the data,
- 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.
Classes
Times: Monday 10:00-12:50 and 1:30-4:30
Classes will run in a seminar format. They will begin with a lecture, sometimes involving computing/laptop participation, followed by discussion and short updates on experimental work from students. A shared online directory (Google drive) will be used to upload update material.
At the beginning of a new experiment, an introduction to the new experiment will also be given in the class.
Experiments
While much effort will be spent with data analysis and scientific writing, the exciting centerpiece of the course is executing four advanced experiments. You'll have a generous three weeks to work on each experiment. The first experiment will start in the second week of the course. The planned experiments we will work through are the following.
- Brownian Motion: The goal of this experiment is to estimate the Boltzmann constant using a measurement of the brownian motion of microscopic spheres.
- Speed of Light: In this experiment you use the classic Foucault spinning mirror measurement to estimate the speed of light.
- Single Photon Interference: This experiment explores the interference of quantum wave functions.
- Radio Astronomy: In this experiment you'll use a 1.4 GHz (21 cm) radio telescope to look out into the galaxy and (possibly) beyond.
The first two experiments are intended to be a good match to the beginning data analysis being taught in lectures and readings during the first half of the course. These should help you ramp up in terms of your familiarity with data and errors. They are also very cool measurements of two of the most important numbers in physics!
The second two experiments, to be completed in the second half of the semester, are intended to be matched to the more advanced material presented in lectures and readings during the second half of the course. These are new experiments that we've developed over the last two years and think are particularly exciting.
Location and Access
The all experiments associated with the lab are located in room 478 of Bloomberg Hall: the Physics Undergraduate Computer (PUC) lab. Access to the lab is managed by Steve Wonnell (wonnell@pha.jhu.edu). A PUCLab login for the computers will also be useful. Steve Wonnell is also the person to contact for this.
Safety
Use your common sense in all situations. In these labs you'll encounter lasers (where appropriate goggles) and other manageable hazards. Follow the safety instructions at all times. Food and drink are not allowed near the labs. Safety also follows from orderliness: please keep the lab in a tidy state. When in doubt: ask the professor, Steve Wonnell or the TA.
Readings
I will lecture weekly from the classic Bevington text, which is mainly on data analysis. In principle you can work from lecture notes, but you will get more out of the class if you read the text and take your own notes as well.
Bevington & Robinson, Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences, 3rd Edition, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-247227-8, 2003
I will have a couple class copies that you can read in the lab. (Please keep these in the PUCLab!)
Schedule
Below is the nominal schedule for the course.
| Date | Lecture | Weekly Reading | Other Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 27 | Class Overview, Measurement & Errors | Bev. Ch1 | Work on basic LaTeX and Python examples |
| Class material to go here. | |||
| Feb 03 | Probability Distributions, Exp. 1 Introduction | Bev. Ch 2 | Start Exp. 1 |
| Feb 10 | Propagation of Errors | Bev. Ch 3 | Updates on Exp. 1 |
| Feb 17 | Estimates of Mean and Errors | Bev. Ch 4 | Updates on Exp. 1; Exp. 1 Report Draft Due |
| Feb 24 | Monte Carlo Techniques | Bev. Ch 5 | Exp. 1 Report Due, Start Exp. 2 |
| Mar 3 | Linear Least Squares 1 | Bev. Ch 6 | Updates on Exp. 2 |
| Mar 10 | Linear Least Squares 2 | Bev. Ch 7 | Updates on Exp. 2 |
| Mar 17-21 Spring Break | |||
| Mar 24 | Nonlinear Fitting 1 | Bev. Ch 8 | Exp. 2 Due, Start Exp. 3 |
| Mar 31 | Nonlinear Fitting 2 | Bev. Ch 9 | Updates on Exp. 3 |
| Apr 7 | Maximum Likelihood | Bev. Ch 10 | Updates on Exp. 3 |
| Apr 14 | Testing the Fit | Bev. Ch 11 | Exp. 3 Due, Start Exp. 4 |
| Apr 21 | TBD | - | Updates on Exp. 4 |
| Apr 28 | TBD | - | Updates on Exp. 4 |
Groups and Scheduling
You should team up into lab groups of two or three for executing the experiments. It's probably best to have one group through all labs, so you become used to working with one another and fall into a schedule. It would be good to form these in the first week.
While the first lab has multiple stations, the following labs have one apparatus. Therefore groups will need to schedule times throughout week when they will be using the instrument. We will set up a scheduling system (likely Google calendar or spreadsheet). Groups may "team up" if necessary to collect data together, but preferably it can be done group by group. In any case, just make sure everyone gets to take some data! And also be friendly and considerate when sharing the equipment.
Grading
Grades breakdown as
- 80% Labs
- 20% Preparation (submission of 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).
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
Work should be submitted by email in PDF format to the instructor at marriage@pha.jhu.edu -- you may also want to send them to the TA grading the lab (it will get to the TA in any case). To help us organize, the subject of the email should be "Advanced Lab: [last name]" where [last name] is your last name. Also the PDF should be titled [lab number]_[lab initials]_[last name].pdf. For instance if it's your first lab and you are doing Franck Hertz, and your last name is Smith, then you would title your report "01_FH_Smith.pdf".
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 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.
Anatomy of an Experiment
This is an overview -- more detailed discussion will take place in tutorials.
Experiment Execution. The first step in executing an experiment is to have a good idea of the phenomenon being measured -- the reason why you're doing the experiment. Then you need to have a thorough knowledge of the experimental apparatus. With this preparation you will be able to take data. But obtaining measured values is not enough. You need both values and errors. You need to conduct the experiment in a way that estimates systematic errors and statistical errors. Systematic errors can be checked for by conducting the experiment in more than one way that should, e.g., give the same result and checking for discrepancies. Statistical errors may be obtained by repeating the experiment and evaluating the sample variance of the data or there might be an analytic expectation for the statistical error, as in the case of counting experiments.
Data Analysis and Interpretation. The input to data analysis consists of measured values and their errors. You then fit this data with some physical model. If the fit is "good", then you can believe the best-fit model parameters and associated model parameter errors. These model parameters tell you something about the physical world. One big thing: No spread sheets.
Presentation Lab reports constitute the language of the course. The sections of a report are
- Abstract -- Summarily say the aim of the experiment and what you used to measure the phenomenon. Then quote your result which is usually some physical parameter with errors.
- Introduction -- Describe the phenomenon being measured and any historical info. This should not contain much information about what you did in the experiment-- just roundly what you aim to do. The intro is mainly useful background.
- Theory -- Introduce the physical effect that you're trying to probe. Introduce equations.
- Experiment Description -- Describe the experiment setup and procedure, including apparatus etc.
- Data Analysis -- Describe the model that you used to fit the data. Discuss the goodness of the fit and, if the fit was good, the derived model parameters and errors.
- Discussion -- Interpret your results and discuss what may have gone wrong if, e.g., the fit in the Data Analysis section was not good.
- Conclusion -- A short section where you summarize the paper.
Lab Report Specifications
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.
The format should have 1" margins with no smaller than 11 point font. The maximum number of pages is 6, including figures. Be concise.
A standard strategy is to create your figures first in order to guide the body of the text.
Other Useful Texts
Data Analysis
- Press, Teukolsky, Vetterling, Flannery, Numerical Recipes in C (Available online)
- Lupton, "Statistics in Theory and Practice"
LaTeX
- Lamport, LaTeX: A Document Preparation System
- A Not Too Short Introduction to LaTeX: media:not_too_short.pdf
You might also find useful websites from previous years.