PH 314 Lab Syllabus

Lab TA

Name Jeff Schulte

Email Address schuljef@onid.orst.edu

Lab Sections

Tuesday 09:00 to 11:50 AM

Tuesday 02:00 to 04:50 PM

Quizzes (10 points per week)

Read the instructions each week before coming to lab. At the beginning of each lab a short quiz will be given to see if you’ve read the instructions for that week. The quizzes will be easy if you've read the instructions.

Lab Reports (100 points per week)

Lab reports are due at the beginning of the following lab. Late lab reports will not be accepted, except because of transportation problems, illnesses or emergencies. If you want to submit a late lab report, then you must contact the lecture instructor before it is due, or as soon after it is due as possible. You must get the lecture instructor’s approval. Approval is not automatic.

During the last week of the term you may make-up one lab that you missed or re-do a lab to improve your score. If you would like to make up an experiment from the first two weeks of the course, then you're allowed to do both labs and not just one or the other.

Lab Report Format

Introduction/Purpose (10 points) What are you studying and how? Be brief. Don’t write things such as, "The purpose of this experiment was to teach us students how electrons behave in magnetic fields."

Procedure (10 points) Briefly give the procedure. Chronological order would be best.

Data (20 points) Give the data in an easy to understand way. Use graphs and spreadsheets whenever possible. You might want to only put the important data here and put the rest in the back as an appendix. If there is a lot of data, then you might want to put it all in an appendix.

Results (20 points) State your findings. Again, use graphs and spreadsheets whenever possible.

Questions (20 points) Answer the questions in the lab instructions.

Error Analysis (10 points) Determine a range (uncertainty) for all quantities. Here is an example: If you determined f by measuring x and f = 1/x, then you can come up with an upper and lower limit for x (say it's between 0.9 and 1.1 meters) and use it to find an approximate upper and lower bound for f (f upper = 1/0.9 = 1.11 , f lower = 1/1.1 = 0.091). Then you could report f as the average plus or minus some uncertainty (in our case f = 1.01 +/- 0.10).

In addition to finding this uncertainty you should also determine some sources of error (i.e. the wavelength wasn't exactly 500 nm, the current was fluctuating, etc.) Don’t write “human error”. In the quantum mechanical world seemingly insignificant errors can really change the outcome of an experiment because the measured values are so small. It's typical for these values to have large errors.

Conclusion (10 points) State your results briefly. Does your value come within the accepted value within the uncertainty? Why or why not? Give the percent accuracy and percent error.

Percent accuracy = | accepted value – your value | * 100% / accepted value

Percent error = error in your value * 100% / your value

Tips

One question to consider as you write your report is, "If I came back and read this report in ten years, then would I know what I did and what my results were?"

A good report is usually only a couple of pages long. Stress quality and not quantity. Don't fluff your report up with unnecessary details.

Numbers without units are completely meaningless.

Numbers without errors are also completely meaningless. You may feel great when you determine some quantity is 5 when its accepted value is 5.01, but you actually did awful if your result was 5 +/- 1,000,000.

Your report should be easy to follow and understand. You will lose points for incorrect spelling, grammar and punctuation.

You'll be recording data and graphing in excel. You can email the data to yourself from the lab computers or you can save it to a removable drive.

It'd be a good investment of time to stay an extra few minutes after you've finished taking data to make a graph to make sure everything is looking OK. Check it with the lab TA so he/she can let you know if something has gone awry. Also, you might want to answer the questions before you leave. You can also check your answers with the lab TA before you leave.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Reports are to be written on an individual basis. Identical reports will receive a score of zero. Plagiarism includes copying directly from the lab manual. Exception: You may include diagrams from the lab manual in your report, but if you do, then you must cite the source.