Course Number: 1809 (1)
Course Title: General Physics Lab
- REPRESENTATIVE TEXTBOOK
- Introductory Physics Lab 1809 (Text is purchased at University of Utah Bookstore)
- COURSE DESCRIPTION
- This is the one semester of the Introductory Physics Lab program for students in Metallurgical and Fuels and Chemical Engineering Programs. This course accompanies the Physics 2210-2220 sequence, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, and should be taken when students enroll in Physics 2220. The objectives of the complete collection of laboratory experiments are to give students opportunities to acquire those laboratory skills needed to function successfully in the physics laboratory. Those skills include measurement and uncertainty assessment, uncertainty propagation, basic statistical applications to experimental situations, graphing linear and nonlinear data, techniques in numerical analysis, experimental design, and writing formal laboratory reports. Course activities include experiments from mechanics, electronics, optics, and heat. Specifically, they involve learning how to measure and assess uncertainty, propagate uncertainties in calculations, motion in one and two dimensions, graphing skills in a pendulum experiment, viscous drag forces, numerical techniques applied to an oscillation activity, designing and carrying out an experiment leading to a complete formal lab report, geometric and physics optics, and heat.
- PRE-REQUISITE
- Physics 2210
- CO-REQUISITE
- Physics 2220
- OTHER COMMENTS
- It is highly recommended that students enroll in this lab when they enroll in the second semester of the co-requisite lecture course (Physics 2220).
- Introductory Physics Lab 1809 (Text is purchased at University of Utah Bookstore)
- MANDATORY TOPICS
- Topic 1:
- Course Introduction
- Topic 2:
- Measurement, Estimation, and Uncertainty Analysis
- Topic 3:
- Working with Electronic Equipment
- Topic 4:
- Projectile Motion
- Topic 5:
- The Pendulum and Graphing
- Topic 6:
- Digital Circuits
- Topic 7:
- Viscous Drag Forces
- Topic 8:
- A Numerical Analysis Study of Oscillations
- Topic 9:
- Designing the First Experiment - "The Motion of a Cart on an Air Track"
- Topic 10:
- Executing the Experiment Designed During the Previous Week
- Topic 11:
- Geometric Optics - Ray Tracing
- Topic 12:
- The Optical Bench - Optical Instruments
- Topic 13:
- Physics Optics: Interference, Diffraction, Polarization
- Topic 14:
- The Relationship Between Heat and Temperature - Heat Capacity
- Links to exisiting web pages for this course:
- Elementary Physics
Labs
Prepared by Sid Rudolph (2/17/99)