Labs: Why?
At its root science is an empirical (meaning experimental) discipline. This means that all the ideas of science are based on experiments and the data that comes from those experiments. Because doing experiments is so important to the process of science we spend as much time in the lab learning about doing experiments as we do in "class" trying to understand the ideas that try to create a reasonable explanation for all the data.
The second important function of labs is development of communication skills in the context of science. There are several parts of this that are important to me but being able to coherently and effectively explain a process or application of an idea is one. Another value in this process is that writing uses a different part of your brain to process the ideas and helps you make sense of ideas differently than merely reading about them.
Modeling:
You may be used to "confirmation labs" where you verify results that you have discussed in class. While there will be some affirmation of the concepts we have discussed in class we will also be learning a variety of new tools to explore more complex physics problems than we can do analytically. These will include Freemat (an algebraic system related to MatLab) and possibly VPython. We will also be learning a markup language called LaTeX so that we can produce clean and professional looking reports with embedded math and graphics. All of this will be painful at first but will have long term benefits for most of you.
This Term:
The labs this term do not match up with material we are doing in class. This is partly because electromagnetic labs tend to be finicky and unreliable or boring. By studying heat in the lab we will have more time to explore the more abstract material in the classroom. Heat allows us to explore and develop our experimental techniques with more effectively.
Labs
- Transfer Lab
Thermal Properties I - Thermal Properties II
- Thermal Transport I
- Thermal Transport II
- Thermal Transport III
- Circuits
- Dippy Bird I
- Freon Cycle
- LaTeX New
Lab Discussion
- Lab Tutorial
- Thermal Properties I
- Thermal Properties II
- Thermal Transport I
- Thermal Transport II
- Thermal Transport III
- Circuits
- Dippy Bird I
- Freon Cycle
Lab Resources
- LaTeX/FreeMat Intro
Thermal Properties
- Thermal Transport I
- Thermal Transport II
- Thermal Transport III
- Circuits
- Dippy Bird
- Freon Cycle
