FIU PHY1020 Fall 2005

PHY-3106L, Modern Physics Lab I

Fall 2008

This page: www.fiu.edu/~reinhold/phy3106l/fall2008
Dr. Jörg Reinhold , Associate Professor
CP 208, University Park
(305) 348-6422
web: www.fiu.edu/~reinhold
email: reinhold@fiu.edu

All email must have

PHY3106L in the subject line.
identify the sender by his/her full name.
have an appropriate opening & closing.

From time to time, important email will be sent to the class list. I will only use your FIU email address. Therefore,

regularly check your FIU mail box or set a forward.
whitelist my e-mail address in your spam filters.
make sure you don't exceed your quota.

Course Objectives

One of the most valuable tools that scientists have to guide their intuition is observation and experimentation. In this laboratory course, you will perform a series of experiments that are related to the foundations of modern physics. Some of them might have given you a Nobel Prize, would you have been the first one to conduct them. During this course you will learn

to carefully perform measurements.
to properly evaluate the errors of a measurement and its result.
to create and keep an accurate and detailed record of your procedures and data.
to present your experiment and results in a conference like setting.
to prepare written reports of your research.

Read how the American Physical Society (APS) answers the question "What is Science?"

Prerequisites

The same prerequisites that apply to the PHY3106 lecture course apply to this laboratory course. Specifically, you must have already taken the introductory course sequence, PHY2048 and PHY2049 (and their associated laboratories). You must further be enrolled in the lecture part of the course, PHY3106. You will also need to use your FIU email account.

Record Keeping

You will record all you measurements and procedures in a "Laboratory Notebook". This notebook must be a bound book. Pages must be numbered (you can do this by hand, if necessary). I strongly recommend quad. ruled composition or computation books.

Acceptable as notebooks are (for example):
Roaring Spring Compositions Quad Ruled 5 to 1", 9 3/4 in. x 7 1/2 in, 100 leave (available at FIU Book Store for ~ $2.-)
Computation Notebook,4x4 Quad Ruled,Green Paper,11-3/4x9-1/4 (~$9.- at office stores and amazon)

Not acceptable are:
Spiral bound books, note pads, ... (in short, anything for which the removal of a page is a feature of the product)

What should go into the notebook?

Each page must be numbered and dated.
Describe briefly what you will measure.
Sketch the experimental setup. Make sure to properly label items, distances, etc. for later reference.
Record all raw data with their corresponding units exactly the way you measured them.
Keep a record of the model # and serial number of all instruments.
Keep an estimate of individual errors.
The analysis of the data. If you create figures and tables just print and cut and paste them.
The final result with the corresponding error.

What if you make a mistake?

Do not erase or otherwise attempt to make a prior entry unreadable.
Strike out the wrong paragraph, table, or formula in such a way that it stays readable. Thus, if eventually you discover you were correct the first time, you can still recover.

Before you leave the lab, look over your notes and try to imagine the following situation: You are a researcher at a laboratory and you would like to check the analysis of some data that you took 6 month ago. Would you be able, starting from the raw data, to redo your analysis. Or, would you likely have not enough information. If the latter, add this information.

Before leaving the lab, you must present your notebook to me.

Find an example here. As you can see, I have not tried to make this particularly pretty. The emphasis is on completeness of all information needed to analyze the data. I pasted results obtained from a spreadsheet program at the end. There is still some final anaylsis missing.

Attendance

You must arrive on time. If you arrive late, you will lose 10% points for laboratory techniques, 20% >15 min, 30%pts > 30 min, ... (note that you are likely to lose more points, if as a result of your lateness, you cannot complete the lab in time.)

Make-up labs will only be given in extreme cases involving serious medical problems, death in family, etc, not because your car breaks down or you have a work/vacation conflict. Written verification will be required. Make-up labs will only be arranged when notification is made (via email or
phone) prior to the assigned lab.

For any unexcused absence, you will lose the lab participation credit. However, you can still submit a written report, based on one of your lab partners data (clearly state in your report whose data you have analyzed).

Oral Presentations

Each of you will give an oral presentation about one of the experiments. This presentation should be APS 10-min style with up to 5 minutes for discussion. The presentations will be public, i.e. all students in the class are required to attend.

Presentation topics will be assigned on Sep. 15.

Presentation schedule

Dec. 1: Practice Lab (radioactive decay), Speed of Light 1 & 2, Michelson Interferometer, Photoelectric Effect, X-ray Spectr., Compton
Dec. 8: Rutherford, Electr. Diffraction, Inv. P.E. Eff., Frank-Hertz, Stefan-Boltzman, Zeeman

	Monday, December 1
11:00	Ruben	Radioactive Decay (Error Lab)
11:15	Michael Contreras	Speed of Light I
11:30	Matthew Lee	Speed of Light II
11:45	Pedro Espina	Michelson Interferometer
12:00	Casey Neville	Photoelectric Effect
12:15	Mercy Jimenez	X-Ray Spectrometer
12:30	Jason	Compton Scattering
12:45	Brian	Compton Scattering

	Monday, December 8
12:00	Travis	Rutherford Scattering
12:15	John	Electron Diffraction
12:30	Robert Bode	Inverse Photoelectric Effect
12:45	Dione Dick	Frank Hertz
13:00	Sergio Perez	Stefan Boltzmann
13:45	Marco Rodriguez	Zeeman Effect

Presentations should be prepared as electronic slide shows (PDF, PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Keynote, ...). You are required to make an appointment with me to review your presentation the latest one week before your scheduled presentation. All final presentations must be submitted to me by 5 pm the day before your scheduled presentation. Failure to comply with these two rules will result in a lower grade on the presentation.

You are strongly encouraged to practise your talk a few times before you will give it.

Grading criteria

I will provide you with guidelines of what constitutes a good presentation well ahead of your talk. I will also demonstrate this to you in class.

Written Reports

You will submit your written reports via e-mail to me. Here is a template on how a report could look like: MS Word .doc format or Adobe PDF format.

Grading

Grades for the course are based on the written reports (40%), observed laboratory
techniques/log book (45%), and your oral report (15%).

Grading Scale
Grade	F	D-	D	D+	C-	C	C+	B-	B	B+	A-	A
Min. Agv. [%]	0	40	45	50	55	60	65	70	75	80	85	90

All individual exams and homework grades will be calculated as "%". A final letter grade will only be assigned after all grades have been averaged with their appropriate weight factor. If you need a "C" to pass the course, a "C-" is NOT a "C"!
An F0 will be given to students who both earn a failing grade and who fail to complete at least 60% of the course requirements.
Grades will not be given out over the phone. Do NOT to ask the secretaries. They don't know your grade.

A note on incomplete grades:
An incomplete should be given only to a student who has successfully completed half of
the work in the course. A student can drop a class through the eighth week of the
semester; a student with medical, personal, or other problems may withdraw from the
University altogether through the eighth week of the semester. For the actual deadlines
for drops and withdrawals, check the academic calendar.

Class Schedule

Students will be split into four groups named after 4 early 20th century Nobel Prize winners in physics:

1. Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen: John, Travis, Ruben, Bryan
2. Wilhelm Wien: Deon, Mercy, Sergio
3: Max von Laue: Casey, Marco, Michael
4: Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Plank: Mathew, Pedro, Robert

What experiment each group will be doing is listed below. The corresponding chapter of the lab manual should be read before coming to the lab.

Date	Roentgen	Wien	Laue	Plank
Aug. 25	Treating Errors
Sep. 1	Labor Day (University closed)
Sep. 8	Speed of Light 1	Speed of Light 2	Michelson	Photoelectric Effect
Sep. 15	Speed of Light 2	Michelson	Photoelectric Effect	Speed of Light 1
Sep. 22	Michelson	Photoelectric Effect	Speed of Light 1	Speed of Light 2
Sep. 29	Photoelectric Effect	Speed of Light 1	Speed of Light 2	Michelson
Oct 6	X-Ray Spec	Compton	Electr. Diffr.	Rutherford
Oct. 13	Compton	Electr. Diffr.	Rutherford	X-Ray Spec
Oct. 20	Electr. Diffr.	Rutherford	X-Ray Spec	Compton
Oct. 27	Rutherford	X-Ray Spec	Compton	Electr. Diffr.
Nov 3	Inv. P.E. Eff.	Frank-Hertz	Stefan-Boltzman	Zeeman
Nov. 10	Frank-Hertz	Stefan-Boltzman	Zeeman	Inv. P.E. Eff.
Nov. 17	Stefan-Boltzman	Zeeman	Inv. P.E. Eff.	Frank-Hertz
Nov. 24	Zeeman	Inv. P.E. Eff.	Frank-Hertz	Stefan-Boltzman
Dec. 1	Oral Presentations	Oral Presentations	Oral Presentations	Oral Presentations
Dec. 8 12 pm - 2 pm	Oral Presentations	Oral Presentations	Oral Presentations	Oral Presentations