hard diskconduct Caltech Ph6 Course for Winter Term 2011-2012
-- Ph 6 --
Physics Laboratory


  2011-12 Winter Term, Caltech
  Lab Schedule: Recitation on Wednesday (schedule sent via email), lab on Thursdays 1-4pm in 202 E. Bridge. 
                Head: Dr. Frank Rice
                      rice@its.caltech.edu
                TA:   Kunal Mooley 
                      kunal@astro.caltech.edu 
                UTA:  Soonwon
                      soonwon@caltech.edu
  Required Text: Your Lab Manual.
  Recommended Texts:
  1) Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences (Philip Bevington & D. Keith Robinson)
  2) Data Analysis Primer

  Instructions regarding submissions

  1. You are expected to answer the pre-lab questions given in the lab manual (which you are supposed to collect on Thursday/Friday from the basement of Keith Spalding building) and submit the answer sheet during recitation.
  2. Lab notebooks will be due at noon on the following Monday. I will grade and return them to you during recitation.

  Instructions regarding data analysis

  1. All analysis should be preferably done in Mathematica; you are expected to use the CurveFit package in Mathematica to do curve fitting.
  2. Please get Mathematica installed on whichever computer you use for homework.
  3. Note that you will be given a brief introduction to Mathematica and the CurveFit package during your first lab.
  1. You can obtain Mathematica from the Caltech IMSS software website.
  2. Please find the latest version of CurveFit in the documents folder in sl.caltech.edu.
    This is an ftp drive with the username and password provided to you via email. Click here for instructions regarding mounting the network drive on Windows 7. Else, simply direct your web browser to ftp://sl.caltech.edu/

  Grading Policy

   10% recitation
  • understanding of the experiment and physics involved in the upcoming experiment (reading of lab manual)
  • pre-lab problems
  • being on time for the recitation
   40% work done during lab
  • data-taking technique, accuracy and efficiency
  • use of equipment
  • taking notes and in-lab analysis
  • completing the lab on time
  • going beyond the lab manual
   50% lab notebook
  • data analysis
  • correctness of analysis
  • commenting on the data and result(s); discussion of errors
  • on time submission
Discipline and organization are key ingredients to becoming a physicist. Hence, abiding by the instructions on lab safety and lab conduct (given in the lab manual) is very important. Any indiscipline in this regard will adversely affect your grade.

  Collaboration Policy

  1. I encourage you to discuss among yourself and/or with the TA regarding the physics, the experimental apparatus, the data-taking methods, and the analyses involved in the experiments.
  2. However, you are expected to perform the experiment as well as take the data *yourself*, and maintain your own lab notebook (+ lab-notes).
  3. Please consult your TA / Dr. Frank Rice if you feel that a certain experimental apparatus is not functioning as expected.
  4. Remember that copying of data / analyses / conclusion will not be tolerated.

  Experiments available this week

2 A Simple Resonant System
7 The Kelvin Absolute Voltmeter and the Speed of Light
9 Mass Spectrometer
12 Electron Diffraction
14 Lumped-parameter Delay Line
15 Sound Waves in a Cavity
16 Analog Fourier Analysis
19 Index of Refraction of Gases (Michelson Interferometer)
25A Balmer Lines of Hydrogen
27 The Normal Zeeman Effect

  Recitation Schedule

12:30 Eric
13:00 Juliette
13:30 Cutter
14:00 Daniel
18:30 Marec
19:00 Peter
19:30 Bryance
20:00 John
Last updated: 17 Jan 2012, 06:17PM PST