PHYSICS 405 COURSE DESCRIPTION
Fall, 2009
Lecture Room 1219
Physics Building
Laboratory 3210 Physics Building
Physics 405 is an
advanced undergraduate laboratory course for physics majors with experiments
from many fields of modern physics. Students have full access to the
experimental equipment and establish their own work schedules and methods under
the guidance of faculty and staff. Emphasis is on independent experiment
preparation, data acquisition, data analysis, and scientific report
preparation. There is an oral presentation at the end of the course.
PREREQUISITE: Physics 375
LECTURES: Wednesday 12:00-1:00 PM,
Lecture Room 1219 Physics Building
COURSE WEB SITE:
http://elms.umd.edu then
select link for Physics 405.
INSTRUCTORS:
Professor Hassan Jawahery |
Phone: 301-405-6062 Office: 4310 Physics Building Email: jawahery@umd.edu |
|
Professor Michael Coplan |
Phone: 301-405-4858 Office:
3215 CSS Building Email:
coplan@umd.edu |
TEACHING ASSISTANT
Mr. Solomon Granor |
Phone:
301-405-6073 |
Office: 4219 Physics Building |
Email sgranor@umd.edu |
LABORATORY
STAFF
Mr.
Allen Monroe |
Phone:
301-405-6002 |
Office: 3311 Physics Building |
Office Hours: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. M-F |
Email: amonroe@physics.umd.edu |
|
Mr.
Thomas Baldwin |
Phone: 301-405-6004 |
Office: 3202 Physics Building |
Office Hours: 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. M-F |
Email: tbald@physics.umd.edu |
SCHEDULE:
Instructor and TA laboratory hours will
be announced in class and posted in the laboratory and on the course web site.
The laboratories are open Monday through
Thursday from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. and on Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00
p.m. If you arrive before the door is open, ask Mr. Monroe or Mr. Baldwin
to open the laboratory for you. If you are the last person to leave any
one of the laboratory rooms, please close the door. If you are returning,
have Mr. Monroe or Mr. Baldwin open the door again when you return. You
must be finished with your work when the laboratory closes. If you are
not finished taking data at 5:00 p.m. and you are signed up for the following
day, leave a note on your experiment so that a staff member does not
disassemble your experiment.
TEXT
and MATERIALS:
Physics 405 Laboratory Manual
– Department of Physics, Fall 2008 edition.
This will be available electronically on the
Physics 405 web site. This version
is not available in print.
Data Reduction and Error Analysis for
the Physical Sciences, - Phillip R. Bevington and D. Keith Robinson
(McGraw Hill, Inc., 2003, ISBN 0-07-247227-8) or
An Introduction to Error Analysis: The
Study of Uncertainties in Physical Measurement
– John R. Taylor (University Science Books, 1997, ISBN 0-935702-75-X).
You are required to have two
(2) laboratory notebooks. Two are required so that you can work
in one notebook while the other is being graded. Acceptable laboratory
notebooks should be 8.5" x 11" or larger, should be bound, and have
numbered, quad-ruled pages. Pages should be permanent and unperforated.
LECTURES:
There will
be a one-hour lecture from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. in room, 1219 Physics
Building on Wednesdays. We will cover error analysis, laboratory measurement
techniques, vacuum technology, detector operation, basic electronics, signal
analysis and any other topics germane to the course. You will be responsible
for understanding the material presented in lecture and, when appropriate,
expected to include some of this material in your notebook reports and in your
final formal report. If you miss a lecture you are responsible for finding out
from a classmate what was covered. During the latter part of the course,
the lecture period will be used for 12-minute student presentations. Attendance at the presentations is mandatory. You will not pass the
course if you do not attend all presentations unless you have a valid excuse
approved by an instructor, You are
responsible for knowing the presentation schedule.
EXPERIMENTS:
In order to
pass the course, 6 units of work must be completed, which will typically
consist of four to six experiments. Failure to
complete all 6 units will result in failing the class; completion is defined as
performing the laboratory and turning a laboratory notebook to be graded.
Each student is required to work on the experiments entirely by her/himself. At
the completion of each experiment, you will need to hand in the laboratory
notebook for grading. This means that it will be necessary to have at least 2 laboratory notebooks in order to have one
available while the other is being graded. Every attempt will be made to grade
your experiments promptly so that you will be able to improve your next report
before handing it in. The notebook reports are meant to be your notes and
documentation of your work in the laboratory, and are not meant to be a formal write-up.
(Please refer to the laboratory manual for more information on the notebooks.)
Your first experiment must be a one-unit
experiment. (in order to total six units, you must therefore complete at least
one other one-unit experiment). You may do either zero, one, or two
two-unit experiments.
SCHEDULING EXPERIMENTS:
There will be an online sign-up sheet that can
be accessed from any computer with an internet connection or from the computer
in Rm. 3210. The url is http://www.physics.umd.edu/cgi-script/courses/p405.pl
You must request time each week to perform your experiments. Time slots are
available in ½-day periods. In order to save your experimental
setup, you must sign up for two consecutive periods. Also, please
dismantle your setup when you have completed your data taking.
Prior to carrying out an experiment, you are
required to complete the preparatory questions at the start of the
experiment. There is a spot on the course website for you to
electronically submit the prep questions, or you can hand them in on a piece of
paper at the beginning of the class period in which they are due. You
must have the prep questions examined and initialed by either the instructor or
the TA before you begin the experiment.
DUE DATES FOR THE NOTEBOOK
REPORTS:
Notebook reports are due according to the
schedule shown in the syllabus. There is a 1-point
penalty per day for late reports.
FORMAL REPORT:
One of the
four to 6 experiments is to be rewritten as a formal report and is to be turned
in by Friday, December 11, 2009. Please refer to the laboratory manual and the
information on the Blackboard page for the format of the formal report.
ORAL PRESENTATION:
Each student will be expected to give one
12-minute presentation on an experiment of his or her choice. The talks
will be followed by questions from other students, the TA and instructors.
HOMEWORK:
Several times during the semester a short set
of homework problems will be assigned. The purpose of these problems is to
review and strengthen your understanding of error analysis you will be
performing in your laboratories, as well as provide experience with common
experimental issues.
GRADES:
Notebooks (20 per unit) |
60% |
Homework |
10% |
Formal report |
15% |
12-minute talk |
15% |
|
|
TOTAL |
100% |
VALID EXCUSES:
If you have
a valid excuse for missing a due date for a notebook report or a 12-minute
presentation (e.g. a medical emergency) see one of the instructors to make
alternate arrangements, beforehand if at all possible. Ex post facto (after the fact) excuses will require validation and
may not be acceptable. You must speak to one of the instructors. The TA
does not have the authority to make alternate arrangements.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY
(CHEATING):
Academic dishonesty is a serious offense that may
result in suspension or expulsion from the university. In addition to any other
action taken, the normal sanction is a grade of "XF", denoting
"failure due to academic dishonesty," and will normally be recorded
on the transcript of the offending student. Remember, you are required to
perform all experiments, analysis, and write-up independently. It is OK to
discuss the experiments with other students but you
must do the work.
TIPS FOR DOING WELL:
Read the laboratory manual carefully before
attempting an experiment.
Answer the pre-laboratory questions in your notebook and have them
checked by the professor or TA before you begin the experiment.
Keep a complete log for
the experiment including experimental diagrams of measurement configurations
used to obtain data, results, estimates of various errors and limitations to
the measurements, analysis used to obtain final results and a proper estimate
of all errors including systematic errors as well as statistical errors.
Show clearly the
reasoning used to arrive at conclusions. If the experimental result does not
agree with the known or accepted values, your documented reasoning may be the
only clue that the TA or the instructor has for determining what went
wrong. Additional information, a
list of experiments and more detailed help can be found at the course
website.
Good
time management is essential for success in this class. Don't fall
behind! Don't wait until the last day to do an experiment!
IMPORTANT DATES:
First meeting: Wednesday, September 2; Introduction to the lab First Class Lecture: Wednesday, September 9 |
Labor Day: Monday, September 7 |
Last Day for Schedule Adjustment |
Last Day to Drop with a "W": Monday, November 9 |
Thanksgiving Recess: Thursday, November 26 and Friday,
November 27 |
Final Report Due: Friday, December 11 |
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE (subject
to revision)
Dates |
Lecture |
Reading |
Due Dates |
9/2 |
Introduction,
Experiments |
Survey
Laboratory Manual |
|
9/9 |
Lecture 1,
Radiation Safety |
|
Unit
#1 Prelab(*) |
9/16 |
Lecture
2: Statistics: Random & Systematic errors |
Bevington
Ch. 1-2
, Taylor Ch. 3,4,5,10,11 |
Homework #1 |
9/23 |
Lecture
3, Linear Least Squares Fitting |
Bevington
Ch. 6-8,
Taylor Ch. 7, 8,12 |
Unit
#1 Notebook Homework
#2 |
9/30 |
Lecture
4, Electronics |
Building
Scientific Apparatus,
Ch. 6 |
Homework
#3 |
10/7 |
Lecture
5, Vacuum Technology |
Building
Scientific Apparatus,
Ch. 3 |
Unit
#2 Notebook Homework
#4 |
10/14 |
Tour
of campus reactor |
|
|
10/21 |
Lecture
6, Detectors |
Building
Scientific Apparatus,
Ch. 7 |
Unit #3 Notebook Homework
#5 |
10/28 |
|
|
Homework
#6 |
11/4 |
12
Min. Presentations |
|
Unit
#4 Notebook |
11/11 |
12
Min. Presentations |
|
|
11/18 |
12
Min. Presentations |
|
Unit
#5 Notebook |
11/25 |
12
Min. Presentations |
|
|
12/2 |
12
Min. Presentations |
|
Unit
#6 Notebook |
12/9 |
12
Min. Presentations |
|
|
12/11 |
|
|
Final
Report |
*All subsequent
pre-laboratory questions must be completed and checked (initialed) by the TA or
an instructor before laboratory work can start. The laboratory notebook due
dates correspond to one-unit laboratories. You will have twice as long to
complete two-unit laboratories. Due date time is 12:00 noon unless otherwise
specified.
NOTEBOOKS:
Laboratory notebooks
should give a complete description of the way the experiment was performed and
the way the data were analyzed. Another person should be able to take the
notebook and duplicate the experiment. Below is a list of the essential
elements of the notebook report:
á Notebook reports written in ink in a laboratory
notebook with quad-ruled, numbered pages. Mistakes not be erased, scratched
over or covered with White-Out. A single line is to be drawn through mistakes.
á All graphs staples, passed or taped in the
notebook. The graph axes be labeled. Formulas, derivations, and discussions
necessary to understand the graphs included.
á A brief description of theory behind the
experiment followed by a clear description of the procedure used to take data.
Schematic diagrams of the experimental arrangement along with circuit diagrams
of electronics.
á Units for all numbers with appropriate
significant figures.
á Estimates of random and systematic errors and
the justification for the estimates.
á Analysis
of the data using proper error analysis and a description of the analysis
methods. If Mathematica is used, include the analysis steps in addition
to the Mathematica notebook included in the laboratory notebook.
á Comparison of statistical error with random
error (reduced c2).
á Final results with total error (including
systematic errors), comparison of the final results with expected values and a
discussion of discrepancies.
á Answer to all questions in the Laboratory
Manual including discussion questions.
á All parts of the experiments completed.
Grading
Description of procedure
(including prep questions) 3 points
Raw data (including
tables, plots, etc) 5 points
Analysis (including
errors and final results) 8 points
Remaining topics listed
above 4 points
One point will
be subtracted from the report grade for each day late. Failure to submit all
report will result in an F for the course.
CourseEvalUM
Fall 2009
Your participation in the evaluation of courses through
CourseEvalUM is a responsibility you hold as a student member of our academic
community. Your feedback is
confidential and important to the improvement of teaching and learning at the
University as well as to the tenure and promotion process. CourseEvalUM will be open for you to
complete your evaluations for fall semester courses between Tuesday, December 1
and Sunday, December 13. Please go
directly to the website (www.courseevalum.umd.edu) to complete your evaluations
starting December 1. By completing
all of your evaluations each semester, you will have the privilege of accessing
online, at Testudo, the evaluation reports for the thousands of courses for
which 70% or more students submitted their evaluations.