The first Lab for Physics 2215 will meet the week of August 30 (= 2nd week of the semester).

You MUST bring your lab manual to the 1st lab session.
Failure to do so will be treated as an unexcused absence.

Make sure you purchase the lab manual for the correct course and correct academic year. The PHYSICS 2215 (NOT 2216) manual for AY2009-2010 is bound by a three-hole binder with a mainly Blue-Green Color cover sheet. On the cover is an image of a liquid drop, and a red belt at the bottom. The editors are J. Peebles, V. Soghomonian and T. Takeuchi.

Lab manuals can be purchased at the following locations:

• The University Bookstore (on campus)
• The University Bookstore Volume 2 (University Mall)
• The Tech Bookstore (South Main Street)

Introduction

Welcome to Physics 2215, the companion course to Physics 2205. 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 2205 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 2215 is the first half of the Physics 2215-2216 sequence and consists of Lab 1 through Lab 11 in the Lab manual. These 11 experiments are representative of the material covered in the lectures, see Schedule.

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 2205, 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 reading requirements 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 quadruple duty as

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

The pre-class assignment WILL NOT be GRADED. However, as described later below, it is ESSENTIAL for you to try to answer all the questions posed therein.

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

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 as your lab report before you leave. The lab report part will be graded 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

Required Reading:

• Read the sections of your textbook listed under "required reading". 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. There will be no enforcement or penalty for this requirement, but people who choose to ignore it will do so at their own disadvantage.

Pre-Class Assignments (A MUST to complete before each lab session!):

• As mentioned earlier, the pre-class assignments WILL NOT be collected separately or graded for credit (although on the top page of each lab report it appears to be counted as 30% of the whole grade). However, as you will understand immediately by reading the content, they prepare you, in a very concrete and essential manner, how and what you need to perform each lab session. So do your best to work on them (you may take advantage of Physics TA's common office hours). Otherwise, coming to a lab session without trying to work on a pre-class assignment will certainly leave you Completely Clueless as to what you need to do, hence unable to complete the lab session correctly and in time! Note also that questions in the Final Lab Examination may be posed directly or indirectly from those in these assignments.

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 miss a lab due to an unforeseeable emergency (e.g. sickness, death in the family, automobile accidents, etc.), then you must contact Prof. Tetsuro Mizutani within ONE WEEK of your missed lab (EXCEPT for Lab 11: the last lab a week before the make-up week, which will be very difficult to make up within a short notice, SO DO NOT MISS IT!), and provide documentation to prove that your absence was due to an emergency (e.g., a letter from your doctor, letter from the dean, police report, etc.). Please note that a letter from the dean, etc. alone is NOT sufficient. Independently, you must complete and send a MAKEUP REQUEST, as explained below.
  
  Use MAKEUP REQUEST FORM for this objecive. If Prof. Mizutani 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 during the makeup days (week of November 15 , 2009). Normally, only up to two labs can be excused for makeups.
• Any excused absence that is not madeup during makeup week will be considered an unexcused absence.
• If you miss a lab without a valid reason then your absence will NOT be excused and you will NOT be allowed to makeup the missed lab, toward the end of the semester (see Schedule. Note that absences due to foreseeable circumstances such as family reunions, weddings, dentist appointments, athletic meets, departmental activities, etc. will NOT be excused, unless you obtain PRIOR authorization from Prof. Mizutani. Under no circumstances may your TA authorize a makeup.
• 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. You must contact Prof. T. Mizutani by using MAKEUP REQUEST FORM by the deadlines listed above.

Lab Reports (counts 75% of your final grade):

• 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 full score for each lab report is 70.
• 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.
• You must never work in groups of more than TWO students. If your instructor finds you working in a group of more than two, all the students involved will be reported to the honor court.

Makeups

• To makeup an excused absence during the first three days of the week of November 15, 2009 (see Schedule), Use MAKEUP REQUEST FORM to contact Prof. Tetsuro Mizutani to have your absense excused and sign up for a makeup session within ONE WEEK of your missed lab (EXCEPT for Lab 11, as stated earlier. DO NOT MISS IT !). Requests for makeups after this deadline will not be accepted.
  Note that the makeup days are different from your normal lab session days. You must make up your lab(s) during one of the offered time slots (to be announced).

Final Lab Exam

• As you may find in the Schedule, there will be a Final Lab Exam. Material will be taken from all the lab sessions and pre-class assignments for the fall semester . This will consitute 25% of your total grade.

Questions & Comments

All questions and comments regarding this course should be addressed to the instruction supervisor Prof. T. Mizutani.