i Introduction to Physics 2211 and 2212 The purpose of the physics laboratories is to help students visualize some of the concepts covered in class, to give students hands on experience with equipment and techniques of taking and analyzing data and to help students develop critical thinking skills. Much of the material covered in the lab is also covered in the lecture course, but not always in the same order. This means that the lab requires separate preparation. Students should prepare for each week's experiment by reviewing the previous week's experiment, reading the upcoming experiment, and by looking up relevant topics in the textbook and other sources, such as hyperphysics. There are many helpful web pages covering the lab topics. These topics are listed at the start of every experiment. There will be eleven lab meetings and two meetings for assessment testing each semester. When you registered, you signed up for a specific lab section. Each section meets once a week, twice a week in summer. You may permanently change lab sections only with the approval of the lab supervisor and the instructor of the section into which you want to transfer. Professors’ criteria mety vary slightly, but generally students must attend at least eight experiments and turn in satisfactory reports for those experiments in order to pass the course. Students are expected to come to lab on time, to bring the proper materials, to prepare by reading the manual and suggested readings, to handle equipment with due care, to clean up after themselves, to work cooperatively with other students, and to turn in only their own work. Lab policies You may not come to lab more than half an hour after the lab has started. During a semester you may make up two missed labs by attending another section. You must completely and correctly fill out a Lab Make up Form and have the permission of the instructor in the make up lab. You may not make up more than two labs without special permission from the lab coordinator. E-mail your regular instructor to let him or her know if you have attended another section. There is no other provision for making up missed experiments. If you make up an experiment in another section, it will still be due at the usual time. State law forbids eating, drinking, or smoking in the lab room, and the instructors are required to enforce this rule. University policy requires that all cell phone, pagers, and similar devices be turned off during classes. Students using such things, laptops, or anything with earphones during quizzes will receive a zero grade for that quiz. Students may not wear earphones during the lab period. Students who consistently violate this policy will be asked to leave the lab and receive a zero for that week. If you are expecting a call due to some emergency, talk to the lab instructor at the start of the period. Students who are careless with equipment will lose credit; Students who are persistently or willfully careless with the equipment will be dismissed from the labs and from the course with a failingii grade. The instructor may deduct points from everyone’s grade if the equipment is left in poor condition. If something seems to be broken, or is not working properly, call the lab instructor; do not try to fix equipment yourself. Lab Format Each student must have a lab manual, a bound quadrille-ruled notebook, a plastic metric ruler, and a calculator. Bring each of these every week. It is important that you read the lab material before the experiment because the experiments cannot be timed to coincide with lectures on a particular topic and lab time is limited. Relevant topics are listed at the start of each experiment. Read the relevant sections of the textbook and look up the topics on Hyperphysics. Hyperphysics is an interactive tutorial program developed by Dr. C. Rod Nave of Georgia State University and can be reached at http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hphys.html Labs will begin with a fifteen minute quiz covering material from previous experiments and the suggested readings for the current experiment. Students who arrive late will not be given extra time or another chance to finish the quiz. Each experiment will begin with a brief discussion of the principles involved and a demonstration of the equipment. Students will then divide into groups of two or three to perform the experiment. Each student must have his or her own complete set of data at the end of the period. This data must be entered in the bound lab notebook, in ink, and must be checked and initialed by the instructor. The Role of the TA The teaching assistant is there to help you learn as much as possible from each experiment. His or her job is to explain the procedures, fix any problems with the equipment, monitor students’ work and give a fair evaluation of lab reports and quizzes. The TA is not there to tell you the answers to the questions in the lab manual, but rather to guide you as you find the answers for yourself. Lab Report Format Each person is expected to turn in a complete lab report. The instructor will announce the due date for each experiment; late work will not receive full credit. Work that is more than two weeks late can only get analysis credit, that is, four points. Each experiment should be written in blue or black ink in a standard bound, quadrille-ruled notebook. Reports must be printed or written legibly in correct English. Poor organization, bad grammar, and illegibility will be penalized. Data Raw data is to be recorded directly into the notebook. Data is never written on scrap paper and then recopied. Frequently the data can be organized into one or more tables. Be sure to include units with the data. Be sure that you have the instructor check and initial your data before you leave at theiii end of the lab period. If your data does not have your instructor’s initials, your report will not be graded. Analysis This can usually be finished before the end of the lab period. The requirements are listed for each experiment. The analyses must be correct, and have the correct units and significant digits for credit. Show a sample of each computation and present the results in tabular form. Results unsupported by sample calculations are not acceptable. Computer printouts, error analysis, and most graphs belong in this section. Graphs