Introduction

Welcome to Physics 2216, the companion course to Physics 2206. The objective of this course is to give you an opportunity to experience for yourself that all the theories and laws of physics that you learn in Physics 2206 actually do "work". By "work" I mean that the real physical world around us does indeed behave in the way described by the theories and laws and that this can be verified by careful measurements.

Physics 2216 is the second half of the Physics 2215-2216 sequence and consists of Lab 13 through Lab 24, excluding Lab 24 this summer. These 11 experiments are representative of the material covered in the Physics 2206 lectures. Some of the sections meet on Monday/Wednesdays and other sections meet on Tuesday/Thursdays (see sections to see when your section meets) We do a different lab each time. The meeting room will alternate between 312 and 316 Robeson, but your TA will always direct you to the correct room (or you can consult the schedule to see where we meet for a given lab.)

Since the whole point of the course is to give you first hand experience, attendance is a must. There are heavy penalties for missed labs. Please read the Course Requirements section below carefully. Ignorance of the rules will not be accepted as an excuse for not following them.

Please note that even though this is a companion course to Physics 2206, it is meant to be complementary rather than supplementary to it. The lectures will help you better understand the labs, and the labs will help you better understand the lectures. Therefore, the lectures do not necessarily precede the labs in the coverage of certain material. Furthermore, some lab material may not be covered in the lectures at all. The textbook reading and pre-class assignments are designed to give you enough background material to perform the labs even when the material had not been covered in the lectures.

Experiments are to be performed in groups of no more than TWO students. You should work with your lab partner in such a way that each of you fully participates in the experiment. Mutual discussion and cooperative analysis are encouraged, but each student is expected to record his/her own measurements of data in the lab notes, perform all necessary calculations, and write up results, analyses, and answers to assigned questions. Copying your lab partner's analysis is considered a violation of the honor code and will be prosecuted.

About the Lab Manual

Each section of the manual serves triple duty as

1. your pre-class assignment report,
2. the instruction booklet for your labs,
3. and your lab report.

Staple together all the pages for each section at the upper left hand corner.

BEFORE coming to lab, you must complete the pre-class assignment for that lab. Your TA will check at the beginning of the lab session to see if you have completed the pre-class assignment. If you have not completed it by the beginning of the lab session, then you will not receive credit for it. Lab sessions are not to be used for working on the pre-class assignments. Anybody who is caught working on the pre-class assignment during the lab session will get zero credit for the ENTIRE lab, with no opportunity for makeup. The pre-class assignments should be your own work; it is a violation of the honor code to copy somebody else's solutions.

During the lab session, you will follow the instructions in the manual and complete the data taking and analysis during the lab session and hand in the entire section again as your lab report before you leave. The lab report part will be graded separately from the pre-class assignment part and the complete section will be returned to you at the following lab session.

It is your responsibility to make sure that your previous lab report is returned to you graded. Do not throw away the returned lab reports. As stated in the introduction, there are heavy penalties for missing lab sessions so in the event that your instructor's records of your attendance disagrees with your recollection, only graded lab reports will be accepted as proof that you have actually attended the labs.

Course Requirements

Background material:

• It is strongly recommended that you read the sections in your Ph 2206 course book that are related to a given lab's topic. This will give you the necessary information to solve the pre-class assignment problems and to understand what you are going to do in the lab.

Pre-Class Assignments:

• Every lab except the first one. Must be completed before the lab session begins. The TA will check at the beginning of the lab session to see if you have completed it; no credit will be given for pre-class assignments that are not completed before the lab session starts. Your answers must be written clearly and neatly. Illegible handwriting will not be graded.
• The pre-class assignment counts for 30% of the grade for each lab session except the first. If you do not complete the pre-class assignment before your lab session starts, you will automatically receive zero points for the pre-class assignment.

Attendance:

• You must attend ALL the labs without exception.
• You must not be late for labs. If you are more than 15 minutes late, 15 points will be deducted from your grade. If you are more than 30 minutes late, 30 points will be deducted.
• If you know beforehand that you must miss a lab a particular week, you can make up for it by attending another lab section offered the same day. You must contact your regular lab instructor and the instructor of the alternate section you would like to attend at least one week in advance to make sure that you can be accommodated in the alternative section. If you cannot make it up the same day, then follow the procedure below to sign up for the end of term makeup day.
• If you miss a lab due to an unforeseeable emergency (e.g. sickness, death in the family, automobile accidents, etc.) and fail to make it up the same day, then you must sign up to make up the lab during the makeup day (August 6 or 7) using this MAKEUP SIGN-UP FORM within one week of your missed lab. If Prof. Pitt agrees that your reason for missing the lab was valid, then your absence will be excused and you will be allowed to sign up for a makeup session on makeup day (August 6 or 7, 2008). Only up to two labs can be excused.
• Excused absences that are not madeup on makeup day will be considered an unexcused absence.
• If you miss a lab without a valid reason and do not make it up on that lab day, then your absence will NOT be excused and you will NOT be allowed to make up the missed lab on makeup day.
• Unexcused absences will be penalized heavily: If you have one unexcused absence, your maximum grade will be a B, for two unexcused absences it will be a C, for three unexcused absences it will be a D, and for four or more unexcused absences you will automatically receive an F. Note that these are the maximum grade you can get assuming perfect performance. Your actual grade could be even lower.
• Note that your lab instructor does not have the authority to excuse absences.

Lab Report:

• Must be written clearly and neatly. Illegible handwriting will not be graded.
• The report must be handed in at the end of the lab session before you leave. People who do not turn in their lab reports will be treated as if they had been absent from the lab. Late reports will not be accepted. "I forgot to turn it in!" will NOT be accepted as an excuse.
• The lab report counts for 70% of the grade for each lab session.
• You must not copy the results and analysis of your lab partner. It will be considered a violation of the honor code and will be prosecuted.
• You must not invent fake data. You must record what you actually measure. Don't ever think that your instructor will not be able to tell the difference. The difference between real and fake data is obvious to the trained eye. Faking data is also considered a violation of the honor code and will be prosecuted.

Makeups

• As stated above, if you know beforehand that you cannot attend lab a particular day, then you can make up for it by attending another lab section on the same day. It is your responsibility to contact your lab instructor well in advance to tell him/her that you will be attending the alternative section instead of your regular section.
• To makeup an excused absence on makeup day (August 6 or 7, 2008), you must fill out the MAKEUP SIGN-UP FORM within ONE WEEK of your missed lab.

Questions & Comments

All questions and comments regarding this course should be addressed to the instruction supervisor Prof. Mark Pitt (M. Pitt).