Physics 2216 - Fall 2008
The first Lab for Physics 2216 will meet the week of August 31 (= 2nd week of the semester).
You MUST bring your lab manual to the 1st lab.
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 2216 (NOT 2215) manual for AY2008-2009 is sprial bound
with a mainly BAIGE colored cover sheet. The editors are Profs. Soghomonian and 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)
If they are sold out at one place, check the others.
There will always be a copy available at one of the three places.
"But they were all sold out!" will NOT be accepted as an
excuse.
Syllabus
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 23. These 11 experiments are representative of the
material covered in the lectures.
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 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 triple duty as
- your pre-class assignment,
- the instruction booklet for your labs, and
- your lab report.
The pre-class assignment WILL NOT be GRADED. But as is described later below, it is essental
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 23
for which the deadline is Friday, November 14, 2008)
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.).
Use
MAKEUP REQUEST FORM for this purpose.
If Prof. T. 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 makeup days (week of November 16, 2008, see schedule).
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.
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 instructors do not have the authority to excuse absences.
You must contact Prof. T. Mizutani 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.
-
Each 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 wil be reported to the honor court.
Makeups
- To makeup an excused absence during the two-day
makeup sessions (week of November 16, 2008, 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 23 for which
the deadline is Friday, Nov. 14, 2008).
Requests for makeups after this deadline will not be accepted.
- Note that make up sessions may not be offered at your regular
lab hours.
You must make up your lab 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. Mizutani.
This page is maintained by T. Mizutani.
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