| Instructor: | Jim Crumley |
| Office: | 107 Peter Engel Science Center |
| Email: | jcrumley@csbsju.edu |
| Phone: | 363–3183 |
| Office Hour: | 1:30 pm MTW, 11:00F days (or by appointment or just stop by) |
| Lab: | 12:45 – 4:45 pm R |
| Room: | 144/167 Peter Engel Science Center |
| Web Sites: | http://www.physics.csbsju.edu/~jcrumley/370/ |
| Canvas: https://csbsju.instructure.com/courses/23368 |
Several lab assignments and three experiments will be completed by each lab group during the semester. All groups will be doing the Rocket and Magnetopause experiments, and either the plasma, speed of sound, or torsion pendulum experiments. The experiments will be graded based on your lab notebooks. As well as recording your data and doing the necessary calculations, be sure to answer all of the questions from the lab in your notebook. The final project for this course is a formal lab report about one of your labs.
Roughly half of the time there will be a lecture at 12:45 pm introducing the concepts behind a lab and tools needed for a lab. You are free to work on the experiments when you like as long turn the assignments in on time, though I recommend that you do at least some of your work during the scheduled lab periods. Note that points will be deducted for late assignments. Also, note the due dates for labs in the schedule below.
Keeping a clear, complete lab notebook is an important scientific skill and much of your grade for this class will be based on your notebooks. Refer back to your Physics 191 and 200 lab manuals for a list of what must be included in your lab notebook. Note in particular, that you must include a Procedure section which fleshes out what you actually did.
Additionally, whenever you are fitting a function, you should think about what your fit results mean. Do your results make sense? Is there another fit you should try? Should (0,0) be a point in your fit? Should you force the fit line to go through 0? Along the same lines, almost every number that you report should have an uncertainty. Always think about where uncertainty comes from in a given experiment, and how you are going to propagate uncertainty in your results.
Also, note that though your partners and you are expected to work on the lab together, each partner must hand in a lab notebook for each experiment. Finally, though you should discuss your answers to the lab questions with you partner, each partner should answer the questions in their own words.
Finally, whenever you create a plot in this class, you must save an electronic version of that plot, so that you can reprint it later and/or put it in your formal lab report. This is a good practice in general. If it is important enough to print something and put it in your book, it is important enough to keep an electronic copy.
The formal presentation piece of this course will be a formal lab report. Specific guidelines and topics will be provided later in the semester — see schedule below. Note that you should make your first draft a complete draft, so that I can give you the most helpful feedback.
| Dates | Lecture | Due |
| 1/18 | Introduction / Unix Tutorial | Pre-Survey |
| 1/25 | Rocket Lab / Mathematica Tutorial | Unix Tutorial |
| 2/01 | Magnetopause Lab | Mathematica Tutorial |
| 2/08 | Torsion Pendulum & Speed of Sound | — |
| & Plasma labs | — | |
| 2/15 | — | — |
| 2/22 | — | 1st of 3 labs |
| 2/29 | — | — |
| 3/07 | Spring Break | — |
| 3/14 | — | — |
| 3/21 | A few words on Formal Lab Reports | 2nd of 3 labs |
| 3/28 | – | – |
| 4/04 | Senior thesis topics | — |
| 4/11 | — | Draft of Formal Report |
| 4/18 | Drafts returned | – |
| 4/25 | Scholarship and Creativity Day | attend Physics talks & 3rd of 3 labs |
| 5/02 | — | 3rd of 3 labs |
| 5/09 | — | Formal Report & Thesis topic & Post Survey |
The grade for this class will be based 25% on the formal lab report and 75% on the lab notebooks, tutorials, pre- and post-course surveys, and senior thesis proposals.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated in any part of this course — on tests, on homework, or on lab work. Cases of plagiarism will be dealt with following the schools’ plagiarism policy. Note that accessing answers and/or solutions from web sites is a violation of this policy.
If you need special accommodations for class, please let me know in advance. It is my goal to create a learning experience that is as accessible as possible. Students with disabilities may also wish to work with Student Accessibility Services to discuss a range of options for removing barriers in this course, including official accommodations. Please visit their website for contact and additional information: https://www.csbsju.edu/student-accessibility-services. If you have already been approved for accommodations with Student Accessibility Services, please meet with me so we can develop an implementation plan together.
Attendance is a vital part of this class, particularly while working on group projects. If you need to miss class, please let your instructor know ahead of time.