Physics 250: Advanced Laboratory
Dr. Andrea Cox
Spring 2005, meets 2-3:50pm Fridays in 308 Chamberlin
The primary goal of this course is to develop your skills in experiment design, data-taking and record-keeping, and data analysis. You will not be given detailed instructions for conducting any of the experiments. Instead, you will be told ahead of time the phenomena you will be investigating, so that you can do some background research. Then you will be directed to some equipment, given appropriate equipment manuals and perhaps a brief information sheet about the experiment. From there, you are expected to familiarize yourself with the equipment, decide how to conduct an appropriate investigation, and devise a suitable procedure for achieving your goals. After discussing this procedure with the instructor, you are then to conduct the experiment and analyze your data.
Most of the scheduled laboratory time will be spent on discussions of appropriate record-keeping, calculating experimental error, and individual conversations with the instructor about your experimental procedure. Most of the experimental work you do for this class will be outside scheduled laboratory time. You will be primarily evaluated on the clarity and content of your laboratory notebook -- your record of everything you do in this class.
The secondary goal of this course is to develop your professional-level writing skills. Twice uring the semester you will write a formal, journal-quality paper about one of your experiments. The first paper may be a group effort, but the second must be entirely your own work. We will spend some class time critiquing these papers.
General Course Information