ADVANCED PHYSICS LAB (3): 173.308: Spring 2009
Class Times: Lecture: M 1:30
Scheduled Lab: M 2:30
Class Location: Bloomberg 478
Course web site:
Basic Goals: The aim is to give students exposure to a number of prominent experiments that set the stage for our understanding of modern physics. And to...
- to acquire a working knowledge of these experiments that defined modern physics
- to provide a feeling for the kind of work performed and a few of the major techniques of modern experimental physics
- to improve students' skills in data analysis and scientific communication (both written and oral)
- to give exposure to a number of typical data analysis, programming,
and document preparation packages: Igor, Origin, LabView
Importantly, as junior or senior level physics majors (or graduate students) you have passed the point in your scientific studies where you will be "spoon fed" prepared experiments. In this class, you will be given the general topic, a brief description of the major issues and a feeling for what you should be expected to learn and do. A description of the equipment is presented and then you GET TO IT! We will suggest a few basic areas to go, but you will decide what the interesting physics is and what you need to do find that physics. Then having found something interesting, you are expected to be give some commentary on your results. All this, along with background information, goes in your lab reports.
The time to complete various labs varies from just a few hours (for photoelectric effect) to many many hours (Rutherford scattering). Some measurements are relatively quick to setup, but may require long acquisition times (muon lifetime) to acquire sufficient statistical information and therefore may need some amount of periodic babysitting/checking for as long as 72 hours. Information on after hours lab access is given below. Also as is detailed below, there is an emphasis on writing in this class and it will take substantial time to complete analysis and do a good report for each measurement.
Personnel:
Instructor: N. Peter Armitage
Office:
Bloomberg 309
Phone:
(410) 516-0214
Email:
npa@pha.jhu.edu
Resource Administrator: Steven Wonnell
Computer accounts and keys: You will need a key for after hours access to Bloomberg 478 and a Physics Undergraduate Computer (PUC) Lab account. Information on PUC policies and access can be found here. You will need to contact Brian Schriver in the Physics Dept. main office for keys. But first read all the information regarding that and get the necessary form here.
Groups:
G1: Alex Day, Scott Ingram
G2: Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge and Cy Chavez
G3: Ron Lee and Nicholas Scamman
G4: Mike Kruskal and Joel Rovner
Scheduled Labs:
|
Week 1 |
Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | |
| Hall effect | G1 | G3 | G4 | G5 | G6 | G7 | G2 | |
| Muon lifetime | G2 | G7 | G1 |
G3 |
G4 | G5 | G6 | |
| Pulsed NMR | G3 | G1 | G2 |
G7 | G4 | G5 | G6 | |
| Photo-electric effect and h/e measurement | G7 | G3 |
G5 | G6 | G1 | G2 | G4 | |
| Nuclear spectroscopy | G4 | G5 | G6 | G1 | G2 | G3 | G7 |
|
| Franck-Hertz experiment | G5 | G4 | G7 | G6 | G2 |
G1 | G3 | |
| Rutherford scattering | G6 | G5 | G2 | G3 | G7 | G4 |
G1 |
|
| Zeeman effect | G6 | G2 | G4 | G7 | G1 |
G3 | G5 |
Class Schedule: Be prepared for changes to the below schedule, particularly with regard to student presentations!
All classes will begin at 10:00 AM or 1:30 PM except where indicated.
Grades:
All lab reports are due within 3 weeks after the Monday in which a lab was started. As this class satisfies the Hopkins 'W' writing requirement, comments will be given on the first 3 written reports within one week after turning them in. Students will then need to submit revised lab reports on these labs within an additional week based on the comments. The grades for these first three labs are based on the revised reports.
Reports should be submitted electronically in .pdf format to the instructor or the TAs. In the subject line you should specify what the lab is and what # lab in your sequence it is. Which instructor is responsible for which lab will be specified.
Grades will be based on a 70% combination of the average 5 best lab reports (i.e. you choose 5 of 8 labs to write up), 20% the quality of a 20m oral presentation to be given in class and 10% a subjective ‘participation’ score based on your efforts in the lab itself. Note that the first three reports do need to be submitted to fufill the 'W' requirements and ALL labs need to be performed in class, irrespective of dropping three reports.
Laboratory work is by its nature collaborative and so it is encouraged that teams work closely together while performing experiments and doing data analysis. Lab reports should obviously be written up completely separately. Separate lab notebooks/records should also be kept.
Lab Reports:
There is a major emphasis in this class on writing clear, informative, and (approaching) professional quality lab reports. If you continue on in science you will find that one of the primary ways your impact in your job or field is judged will be through the quality of your technical writing. It is important to spend the time now developing the skillz that communicate your results clearly, informatively, and hopefully not boring-ly.
Reports will be judged on how well they describe the manner in which the experiments were performed, the results that were arrived at, the manner in which they are presented, and a sense of the experimenter's technical virtuosity in performing the measurements. Significant attention should be paid as well to providing background information for the measurements and putting the experiments in the context of the larger physics that they are illuminating. Be creative! There are extra points for creativity. For instance, one could give a short segue on the historical background of how some seminal experiment changed our view of the world. You could think of ways outside of what is in the given presentation material to present the data. Are there other quantities that arise in the measurements that could be plotted? Could you characterize some aspect of the measurement apparatus in a way that would be illuminating, but was not asked for? Etc. etc. Doing these things kind of things, along with demonstrating general competence will put you well on your way to receiving an 'A' in the class.
Reports should be compiled using the LaTex typesetting environment and the American Physical Society PRB style file. I recommend using WinEdt for typsetting. WidEdt is available on the PUC computers. Latex may seem formidable (and overly complicated), but it is the standard for technical manuscript submission. Once you're using it, you will see the elegance and power of moving beyond WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) manuscript preparation. I (NPA) was resistant once myself, but there is no zealot like a convert!
It is encouraged that analysis be done with Igor PRO, which is a standard data analyis package in condensed matter and atomic physics (and Wall Street!). I (NPA) will give a demonstration of it on the first lecture. Steve Wonnell has made Igor PRO available for download here.
https://jshare.johnshopkins.edu/swonnel1/advlab/Igor/
You will need your JHED ID to download it. It is also on the PUC cluster.
An APS Latex manuscript template, a dummy .eps file (to try compiling it yourself), and a .pdf of the resulting output can be found here. If you're using WinEdt it should be fairly straightforward to generate a pdf file using this template.
Presentations:
All students will give a 20 minute presentation (with 5-10 minutes question and answer at the end) at some point in the semester in the class period. Due to the large class size, some weeks multiple presentations will be scheduled. The schedule will be determined asap and posted below. Attendance at these presentations is mandatory for all students. If you need to miss a class, discuss with NPA. It is encouraged that all students in addition to the TA and professor be involved in the Q & A.
Presentations should be given via computer with Powerpoint (or equivalent) software. If you don't have a laptop, we can arrange with Steven Wonnell to borrow a departmental one. In this case you would compose the presentation on a PUC or home computer and then transfer the file to the borrowed laptop.
Note that NPA will give a sample presentation on February 2nd so you will have a general idea of what should go into the presentation.
Presentation schedule:
March 9th:
Morning: Hourticolon-Retzler; Elan
Afternoon: Lee, Ron S; Barton-Rowledge, Mackenzie D
March 23rd:
Morning: Kruskal, Michael E
Afternoon: Day, Alex Hong; Chen, Wayland
March 30th: Suri, Vivek
Afternoon: Scamman, Nicholas Cray; Chavez, Cy T
April 6th:
Morning: Joel Rovner
Afternoon: Garcia, Eugenio; Haase, Alexander S
April 13th:
Afternoon: Ingram, William Scott
Comments? Questions? email npa@pha.jhu.edu