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Lab Manual 2
Lab Manual 2
com
Copyright (c) 1999-2008 by B. Crowell and V. Roundy. This lab manual is subject to the Open Publication
License on page 182. If you do not agree to the license, then you do not have permission to copy the
manual. The lab manual is available for downloading from www.lightandmatter.com, and a copy of the
Open Publication License is also available at opencontent.org.
2
Contents
1 Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3 Free Fall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4 The Earth’s Gravitational Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5 Newton’s Second Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6 Air Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7 Vector Addition of Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
9 Acceleration In Two Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
10 Conservation Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
11 Conservation of Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
12 Conservation of Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
13 Conservation of Momentum in Two Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
14 Torque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
15 The Moment of Inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
16 Absolute Zero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
17 The Clement-Desormes Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
18 The Pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
19 Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
20 Resonance (short version for physics 222) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
21 Standing Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
22 Resonances of Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
23 Static Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
24 The Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
25 The Speed of Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
26 Electrical Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
27 The Loop and Junction Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
28 Electric Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
29 Magnetism (Physics 206/211) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
30 The Dipole Field (Physics 222) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
31 The Earth’s Magnetic Field (Physics 222) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
32 Relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
33 The Charge to Mass Ratio of the Electron. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
34 Energy in Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
35 RC Circuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
36 LRC Circuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
37 Faraday’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
38 Electromagnetism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
39 Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
40 Refraction and Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
41 Geometric Optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
42 Two-Source Interference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
43 Wave Optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
44 Polarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
45 The Photoelectric Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
46 Electron Diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
47 The Hydrogen Atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
48 The Michelson Interferometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Appendix 1: Format of Lab Writeups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Contents 3
Appendix 2: Basic Error Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Appendix 3: Propagation of Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Appendix 4: Graphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Appendix 5: Finding Power Laws from Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Appendix 6: Using the Photogate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Appendix 7: Using a Multimeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Appendix 8: High Voltage Safety Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Appendix 9: Laser Safety Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Appendix 10: The Open Publication License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
4 Contents
Contents 5
1 Interactions
Apparatus ball being pushed outlines two relationships involv-
ing four objects:
single neodymium magnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
triple neodymium magnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
compass
triple-arm balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/group
clamp and 50-cm vertical rod for holding balance up
string
tape
scissors
According to Aristotle, there are asymmetries in-
heavy-duty spring scales
volved in both situations.
rubber stoppers
(1) The earth’s role is not interchangeable with that
of the rock. The earth functions only as a place
where the rock tends to go, while the rock is an
Goal object that moves from one place to another.
Form hypotheses about interactions and test them. (2) The hand’s role is not analogous to the ball’s.
The hand is capable of motion all by itself, but the
ball can’t move without receiving the ability to move
Introduction from the hand.
Why does a rock fall if you drop it? The ancient If we do an experiment that shows these types of
Greek philosopher Aristotle theorized that it was be- asymmetries, then Aristotle’s theory is supported.
cause the rock was trying to get to its natural place, If we find a more symmetric situation, then there’s
in contact with the earth. Why does a ball roll if you something wrong with Aristotle’s theory.
push it? Aristotle would say that only living things
have the ability to move of their own volition, so the
ball can only move if you give motion to it. Aristo- Observations
tle’s explanations were accepted by Arabs and Euro-
The following important rules serve to keep facts
peans for two thousand years, but beginning in the
separate from opinions and reduce the chances of
Renaissance, his ideas began to be modified drasti-
getting a garbled copy of the data:
cally. Today, Aristotelian physics is discussed mainly
by physics teachers, who often find that their stu- (1) Take your raw data in pen, directly into your lab
dents intuitively believe the Aristotelian world-view notebook. This is what real scientists do. The point
and strongly resist the completely different version is to make sure that what you’re writing down is
of physics that is now considered correct. It is not a first-hand record, without mistakes introduced by
uncommon for a student to begin a physics exam recopying it. (If you don’t have your two lab note-
and then pause to ask the instructor, “Do you want books yet, staple today’s raw data into your note-
us to answer these questions the way you told us was book when you get it.)
true, or the way we really think it works?” The idea
(2) Everybody should record their own copy of the
of this lab is to make observations of objects, mostly
raw data. Do not depend on a “group secretary.”
magnets, pushing and pulling on each other, and to
figure out some of the corrections that need to be (3) If you do calculations during lab, keep them on
made to Aristotelian physics. a separate page or draw a line down the page and
keep calculations on one side of the line and raw
Some people might say that it’s just a matter of
data on the other. This is to distinguish facts from
definitions or semantics whether Aristotle is correct
inferences.
or not. Is Aristotle’s theory even testable? One
testable feature of the theory is its asymmetry. The Because this is the first meeting of the lab class,
Aristotelian description of the rock falling and the there is no prelab writeup due at the beginning of
the class. Instead, you will discuss your results with
6 Lab 1 Interactions
your instructor at various points. B Qualitative observations of the interaction of
two magnets
A Comparing magnets’ strengths
Play around with the two magnets and see how they
To make an interesting hypothesis about what will interact with each other. Can one attract the other?
happen in part C, the main event of the lab, you’ll Can one repel the other? Can they act on each other
need to know how the top (single) and bottom (triple) simultaneously? Do they need to be touching in or-
magnets’ strengths compare. It would seem logical der to do anything to each other? Can A act on B
that the triple magnet would be three times stronger while at the same time B does not act on A at all?
than the single, but in this part of the lab you’re go- Can A pull B toward itself at the same time that
ing to find out for sure. B pushes A away? When holding one of the heavier
magnets, it may be difficult to feel when there is any
push or pull on it; you may wish to have one person
hold the magnet with her eyes closed while the other
person moves the other magnet closer and farther.
7
strongly the magnet is being pushed or pulled by the you’re completely done with your analysis — it’s no
other magnet. fun to have to rebuild it from scratch because you
made a mistake!
How do you think the amount of pushing or pulling
experienced by the two magnets will compare? In D Measurement of interactions involving ob-
other words, which reading will change more, or will jects in contact
they change by the same amount? Write down a hy-
pothesis; you’ll test this hypothesis in part C of the You’ll recall that Aristotle gave completely different
lab. If you think the forces will be unequal predict interpretations for situations where one object was
their ratio. in contact with another, like the hand pushing the
ball, and situations involving objects not in contact
Discuss with your instructor your results from parts with each other, such as the rock falling down to
A and B, and your hypothesis about what will hap- the earth. Your magnets were not in contact with
pen with the two balances. each other. Now suppose we try the situation shown
Now set up the experiment described above with two below, with one person’s hand exerting a force on the
balances. Since we are interested in the changes in other’s. All the forces involved are forces between
the scale readings caused by the magnetic forces, you objects in contact, although the two people’s hands
will need to take a total of four scale readings: one cannot be in direct contact because the spring scales
pair with the balances separated and one pair with have to be inserted to measure how strongly each
the magnets close together as shown in the figure person is pulling. Suppose the two people do not
above. make any special arrangement in advance about how
hard to pull. How do you think the readings on the
When the balances are together and the magnetic two scales will compare? Write down a hypothesis,
forces are acting, it is not possible to get both bal- and discuss it with your instructor before continuing.
ances to reach equilibrium at the same time, because
sliding the weights on one balance can cause its mag-
net to move up or down, tipping the other balance.
Therefore, while you take a reading from one bal-
ance, you need to immobilize the other in the hori-
zontal position by taping its tip so it points exactly
at the zero mark.
You will also probably find that as you slide the Now carry out the measurement shown in the figure.
weights, the pointer swings suddenly to the oppo-
site side, but you can never get it to be stable in
the middle (zero) position. Try bringing the pointer Self-Check
manually to the zero position and then releasing it.
If it swings up, you’re too low, and if it swings down, Do all your analysis in lab, including error analysis
you’re too high. Search for the dividing line between for part C. Error analysis is discussed in appendices
the too-low region and the too-high region. 2 and 3; get help from your instructor if necessary.
If the changes in the scale readings are very small
(say a few grams or less), you need to get the mag- Analysis
nets closer together. It should be possible to get the
scale readings to change by large amounts (up to 10 In your writeup, present your results from all four
or 20 g). parts of the experiment, including error analysis for
part C.
Part C is the only part of the experiment where you
will be required to analyze random errors using the done including interactions
techniques outlined in Appendices 2 and 3 at the
back of the lab manual. Think about how you can
get an estimate of the random errors in your mea- Analysis
surements. Do you need to do multiple measure- The most common mistake is to fail to address the
ments? Discuss this with your instructor if you’re point of the lab. If you feel like you don’t understand
uncertain. why you were doing any of this, then you were miss-
Don’t take apart your setup until lab is over, and ing out on your educational experience! See the back
of the lab manual for the format of lab writeups.
8 Lab 1 Interactions
Notes For Next Week
(1) Next week, when you turn in your writeup for
this lab, you also need to turn in a prelab writeup
for the next lab. The prelab questions are listed
at the end of the description of that lab in the lab
manual. Never start a lab without understanding
the answers to all the prelab questions; if you turn
in partial answers or answers you’re unsure of, dis-
cuss the questions with your instructor or with other
students to make sure you understand what’s going
on.
(2) You should exchange phone numbers with your
lab partners for general convenience throughout the
semester. You can also get each other’s e-mail ad-
dresses by logging in to Spotter and clicking on “e-
mail.”
9
2 Kinematics
Apparatus Setup
computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group Check that all four wheels on the cart will spin for
track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group about 20-30 seconds if you flick them hard. If they
dynamics cart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group only spin for a few seconds, see if you can fix the
fan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group problem by spraying WD-40 on the bearings.
AA batteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/group
Set the cart on the track without the fan. Prop
aluminum slugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/group
the motion detector (sonar gun) at one end of the
motion detector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
track so that it is aimed slightly upward. This angle
protractor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
is critical — measure 86 ◦ above horizontal with the
WD-40
protractor, and tape it to the backrest.
With the computer turned off, plug the motion de-
tector into the PORT2 plug on the interface box.
Goal Start up the computer. For compactness, I’ll use no-
Learn how to relate the motion of an object to its tation like this to describe the computer commands:
position-versus-time graph. Start>Programs>Vernier Software>Logger Pro 2
This is the command to start the computer soft-
Introduction ware running. “Start” means to click on the start
menu at the bottom left corner of the screen, “Pro-
Analyzing motion is the most fundamental thing we grams” means to select that from the menu, and so
do in physics. The most versatile way of representing on. There are two different versions of the software
motion is with a graph that has the object’s position installed; use version 2. (Logger Pro 3 doesn’t work
on the upright axis and time on the horizontal axis. with the interface boxes we have.)
It takes some practice to be able to sketch and in-
terpret these graphs, but once you get used to them, Make sure that the interface box is plugged into
they become very intuitive. COM1 (the first COM port) at the back of the com-
puter, not COM2. If the computer presents you
with a dialog box saying “Set Up Interface,” choose
Apparatus COM1.
The object whose motion you’ll study is a cart that Once the program is running, do File>Open, then
rolls on a track. You can either push the cart by go into Probes and Sensors and then into Motion
hand, start it moving with a shove, or clamp a fan on Detector, and open the file of the same name. At
top of it to make it speed up or slow down steadily. this point, you may get the following error message,
To measure the cart’s motion, you’ll use a little sonar which you can ignore: “This file cannot run properly
gun that sends out clicks. When it hears the echo with this hardware interface.”
from the cart, it figures out how far away the cart You’ll get three graphs on the screen, but you only
was based on the time delay and the known speed of want one, the x − t graph. Click on the x − t graph,
sound. The sonar gun is connected to a computer, and then do View>Graph Layout>One Pane, and
which produces a position-versus-time graph. the other two graphs will go away.
If you now click the button to tell it to collect data,
the motion detector should start clicking rapidly,
and it you move the cart back and forth you should
see a graph of its motion. Make sure it is able to
sense the cart’s motion correctly for distances from
50 cm to the full length of the track. If it doesn’t
work when the cart is at the far end of the track,
play with the angle of motion detector a little. If
10 Lab 2 Kinematics
you’re having other problems, you may find some E Slow or Rapid Acceleration
relevant debugging information in appendix 6, which The aluminum slugs can be used to replace two of
describes how to use the computer interface with a the batteries so that the fan will exert about half as
different sensor. much force. Discuss with your partners what you
think will happen if you repeat your previous run
with a weakened fan. Now try it.
Observations
F Changing the direction of motion
In parts Athrough E,you don’t need to take detailed
numerical data — just sketch the graphs in your lab Change the fan back to full strength.
notebook. All of your graphs will have garbage data Now suppose instead of releasing the cart from rest
at the beginning and the end, and you need to make close to the motion detector, you started it moving
sure you understand what’s what. with a push toward the motion sensor, from the far
A Fast and slow motion end of the track. It will of course slow down and
eventually come back. Discuss with your partners
Moving the cart by hand, make a graph for slow what the position-time graph would look like. Now
motion and another for fast motion. Make sure the try it.
motion is steady, and don’t get confused by the parts
of the graph that come before and after your period G Rate of changing speed
of steady pushing. Sketch the graphs and make sure The goal of this part of the lab is to determine
you understand them. whether the speed of the cart in part F was changing
B Motion in two different directions at a constant rate, i.e., by the same amount every
second.
Now try comparing the graphs you get for the two
different directions of motion. Again, record what Zoom in on the relevant part of your graph from part
they look like and figure out what you’re seeing. F. To zoom in, either (a) draw a box with the mouse
and click on the magnifying glass icon, or (b) do
C Reproducing a graph View>Graph Options>Axis Options to select ranges
Now see if you can produce a graph that looks like of time and position values that you want. Print out
this: a big copy; choose landscape mode in the print dialog
box. (Note that if you take different data later, you
may need to fiddle with this again because you’ll be
zoomed in on the wrong part of the new graph.)
If that printer isn’t working, here’s what you need to
do instead. Do File>Export Data, and select “.txt”
for the type of the file. Use a text editor such as
WordPad to delete the header from the file. Save it
in your FC student directory, and also on a floppy
disk if you intend to work on it at home. Get into
OpenOffice or Excel, and open the file. Appendix 4
describes how to use OpenOffice. Whatever method
D Accelerating away from the sensor
you use, make sure the whole group will end up with
Suppose the fan is mounted on the cart as shown copies.
in the figure, so that if the cart is released from a
position close to the motion detector, it will begin Rather than trying to read distances from your graph’s
moving away from it. Predict what you think the vertical axis in units of meters, and times from its
cart’s position-time graph will look like, and show horizontal axis in units of seconds, the simplest thing
your prediction to your instructor before getting a to do is simply to use a ruler to measure vertical
fan. and horizontal distances on the graph, and deter-
mine the slopes from these; although the resulting
Before putting the batteries in the fan, make sure the slopes won’t be in any standard units, that won’t
fan’s switch is off (to the right). Put the batteries in affect your conclusion.
and clamp the fan on the cart.
Set up the situation described above, and compare
the results with what you predicted.
11
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Make a prediction of the four graphs you’ll ob-
tain in parts A and B.
Self-Check
Do the analysis in lab.
Analysis
At one-second intervals, draw nice long tangent lines
on the curve from part G and determine their slope.
Some slopes will be negative, and some positive.
Summarize this series of changing speeds in a table.
Did the velocity increase by about the same amount
with every second?
12 Lab 2 Kinematics
13
3 Free Fall
Apparatus ideal case of θ=90 ◦ , which would be the same as free
fall. Galileo’s task would have been a lot simpler
two stations: if he’d had accurate enough devices for measuring
Behr free-fall column and weight time, because then he could have simply carried out
plumb bob measurements for objects falling vertically. That’s
spark generator (CENCO) what you’ll do today.
paper tape
switch for electromagnet
Goal
Find out whether it is ∆v/∆x or ∆v/∆t that is con-
stant for an object accelerating under the influence
of gravity.
Introduction
A fundamental and difficult problem in pre-Newton-
ian physics was the motion of falling bodies. Aristo-
tle had various incorrect but influential ideas on the
subject, including the assertions that heavier objects
fell faster than lighter ones and that the object only
sped up for a short while after it was dropped and
then continued on at a constant speed. Even among
Renaissance scientists who disagreed with Aristotle’s
claim that the object no longer sped up after a while,
there was a great deal of confusion about whether it
was ∆v/∆x or ∆v/∆t that was constant. It seems
obvious to modern physicists that they could not
both be constant, but it was not at all obvious to
authorities such as Domingo de Soto and Albert of
Saxony. Galileo started out thinking they were both
constant, then realized this was mathematically im-
possible, and finally determined from experiments
that it was ∆v/∆t, now called acceleration, that was
constant. A Setup
The main reason why the confusion persisted for two The apparatus consists of a 2-meter tall column with
thousand years was that the methods for measuring a paper tape running down it. A weight is held at the
time were inaccurate, and the time required for an top with an electromagnet and then released, falling
object to fall was very short. Galileo was able to right next to the paper tape. (An electromagnet
make settle the issue because he figured out how to is an artificial magnet that works when you put an
use a pendulum to measure time accurately, and also electric current through it, unlike a permanent mag-
came up with the idea of effectively slowing down the net, which does not require power.) A spark gener-
motion by studying objects rolling down an inclined ator is hooked up to the two vertical wires, and as
plane, rather than objects falling vertically. He then the weight falls, sparks cross the gap from the first
found how to extrapolate from the case of an object wire to the metal flange on the weight, then from
rolling down an inclined plane at an angle θ to the the flange to the other wire. Sparks are produced
only briefly, at regular intervals of 1/60 of a sec-
Analysis
Since the sparks start before you release the electro-
magnet, the first dot at the very top of the tape will
give the starting position of the weight.
If you consider any adjacent pair of dots (avoiding
the top and bottom ones), then measuring the dis-
tance ∆x between them allows you to calculate an
approximation to the speed of the weight, which you
can think of as being its speed at the point half-way
between the two dots.
Make one plot of speed versus time and another of
speed versus distance, preferably using a computer,
since you will have about thirty data points, and it
15
4 The Earth’s Gravitational Field
Note to the lab technician: The computers to use height (h1 ) takes a smaller time (∆t1 ) to reach the
are the ones with labels on their sides saying Lassie, floor, and the ball released from the greater height
Fang, and Buck. (h2 ) takes a longer time (∆t2 ). The time intervals
involved are short enough that due to the limita-
tions of your reflexes it is impossible to make good
Apparatus enough measurements with stopwatch. Instead, you
will record the sounds of the two balls’ impacts on
(two stations):
the floor using the computer. The computer shows
vertical plank with electromagnets
a graph in which the x axis is time and the y axis
steel balls (2/station)
shows the vibration of the sound wave hitting the
Linux computers with Audacity installed (in 416T)
microphone. You can measure the time between the
two visible “blips” on the screen. You will measure
three things: h1 , h2 , and the time interval ∆t2 − ∆t1
between the impact of the second ball and the first.
Goal From these data, with a little algebra, you can find
Make a high-precision measurement of the strength g.
of the Earth’s gravitational field, g, in Fullerton. The experiment would have been easier to analyze if
we could simply drop a single ball and measure the
time from when it was released to when it hit the
Introduction floor. But since our timing technique is based on
When objects fall, and all forces other than grav- sound, and no sound is produced when the balls are
ity are negligible, we observe that the acceleration released, we need to have two balls. If h1 , the height
is the same, regardless of the object’s mass, shape, of the lower ball, could be made very small, then it
density, or other properties. However, the acceler- would hit the floor at essentially the same moment
ation does depend a little bit where on the earth the two balls were released (∆t1 would equal 0), and
we do the experiment, and even bigger variations in ∆t2 −∆t1 would be essentially the same as ∆t2 . But
acceleration can be observed by, e.g., going to the we can’t make h1 too small or the sound would not
moon. Thus, this acceleration can be considered as be loud enough to detect on the computer.
a property of space itself, and we can refer to it as
the gravitational field in that region of space. Just B Using the computer software
as you would use a magnetic compass to find out There are three Linux computers in 416T that have
about the magnetic field in the classroom, you can the right software and hardware. They’re labeled
use dropping masses to find out about the gravita- Lassie, Fang, and Buck. (On Fang, only sound in-
tional field. In this experiment, you’ll measure the puyt works, not output.) First let’s see how to record
gravitational field, g, in the classroom to sufficiently yourself on the computer saying “hello.” Use the
high precision that, if everybody does a good job and xmix or xmixer program to set the record and mic
we pool and average everyone’s data to reduce ran- levels all the way up. Start up the sound recording
dom errors, we should be able to get a value that is program, called Audacity. Set the record level on
measurably different from the generic world-average high, using the control marked − . . . + next to the
value you would find in a textbook. microphone icon. Record your sound.
A Measuring g precisely Before you get down to serious science, you may en-
joy listening to your own voice reversed in time. A
You will measure g, the acceleration of an object in fun diversion is to write a sentence down backwards,
free fall, using electronic timing techniques. The idea read it out loud, and then electronically reverse it
of the method is that you’ll have two steel balls hang- so it’s forward again. It sounds sort of like someone
ing underneath electromagnets at different heights. with a thick Hungarian accent.
You’ll simultaneously turn off the two magnets us-
ing the same switch, causing the balls to drop at To find out how long a sound is, you can use the
the same moment. The ball dropped from the lower curson and click to find the time corresponding to
17
5 Newton’s Second Law
Apparatus of masses, but keep the total amount of mass con-
stant and just divide it differently between the two
pulley holders. Remember to take the masses of the holders
spirit level themselves into account. Make sure to perform your
string measurements with the longest possible distance of
weight holders, not tied to string travel, because you cannot use a stopwatch to get an
two-meter stick accurate measurement of very short time intervals.
slotted weights The best results are obtained with combinations of
stopwatch weights that give times of about 4 to 20 seconds.
foam rubber cushions Also, make sure that the masses are at least a few
hundred grams or so on each side.
Goal Self-Check
Find the acceleration of unequal weights hanging Compare theoretical and experimental values of ac-
from a pulley. celeration for one of your mass combinations. Check
whether they come out fairly consistent.
Observations
Analysis
Use your measured times and distances to find the
actual acceleration, and make a graph of this versus
M − m. Show these experimentally determined ac-
celerations as small circles. Overlaid on the same
graph, show the theoretical equation as a line or
curve.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Criticize the following reasoning: The weight
fell 1.0 m in 1 s, so v = 1 m/s, and a = v/t = 1 m/s2 .
P2 Since that won’t work, plan how you really will
Set up unequal masses on the two sides of the pulley, determine your experimental accelerations based on
and determine the resulting acceleration by measur- your measured distance and times.
ing how long it takes for the masses to move a cer-
tain distance. Use the spirit level to make the pulley
vertical; otherwise you get extra friction. Use rela-
tively large masses (typically half a kg or a kg each
side) so that friction is not such a big force in com-
parison to the other forces, and the inertia of the
pulley is negligible compared to the inertia of the
hanging masses. Do several different combinations
coffee filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10/group Your goal in this lab is to find a proportionality re-
stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group lating the force of air friction to the velocity at which
computer with sonar sensor the air rushes over the object. For instance, you may
wire cages to protect sensors find the rule
F ∝v ,
which is a shorthand for
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Suppose you tried to do this lab with stacks of
coins instead of coffee filters. Assuming you had a
sufficiently accurate timing device, would it work?
P2 Criticize the following statement:
“We found that bigger velocities gave bigger air drag
forces, which demonstrates the proportionality F ∝
A different technique is to drop the filters onto a v.”
sonar sensor of the type used in lab 2. You can put P3 Criticize the following statement:
the sensor on the floor facing up, and put the wire
cage over it to keep it from getting damaged by being “We found F ∝ v 7 , which shows that you need more
stepped on inadvertently. force to make things go faster.”
21
7 Vector Addition of Forces
Apparatus
force table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
spirit level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
weights
string
Goal
Observations
Test whether the vector sum of the forces acting on
an object at rest is equal to zero. The apparatus consists of a small circular table, with
a small metal ring held in the middle by the tension
in four strings. Each string goes over a pulley at the
Introduction edge of the table, so that a weight can be hung on it
to control the tension. The angles can be recorded
Modern physics claims that when a bridge, an earth-
either graphically, by sliding a piece of paper un-
quake fault, or an oak tree doesn’t move, it is be-
derneath, or by reading angles numerically off of an
cause the forces acting on it, which combine accord-
angular scale around the circumference of the table.
ing to vector addition, add up to zero. Although
this may seem like a reasonable statement, it was Use the spirit level to level the table completely us-
far from obvious to premodern scientists. Aristotle, ing the screws on the feet. Set up four strings with
for instance, said that it was the nature of each of weights, using the small pin to hold the ring in place.
the four elements, earth, fire, water and air, to re- Adjust the angles or the amounts of weight or both,
turn to its natural location. Rain would fall from until the ring is in equilibrium without the pin, and
the sky because it was trying to return to its natu- is positioned right over the center of the table. Avoid
ral location in the lakes and oceans, and once it got a symmetric arrangement of the strings (e.g., don’t
to its natural location it would stop moving because space them all 90 degrees apart), and don’t make any
that was its nature. forces collinear with each other. The ring is an ex-
tended object, so in order to treat it mathematically
When a modern scientist considers a book resting on
as a pointlike object you should make sure that all
a table, she says that it holds still because the force
the strings are lined up with the center of the ring,
of gravity pulling the book down is exactly canceled
as shown in the figure.
by the normal force of the table pushing up on the
book. Aristotle would have denied that this was pos-
sible, because he believed that at any one moment an
object could have only one of two mutually exclusive
types of motion: natural motion (the tendency of the
book to fall to the ground, and resume its natural
place), and forced motion (the ability of another ob-
ject, such as the table, to move the book). According
to his theory, there could be nothing like the addi-
tion of forces, because the object being acted on was
only capable of “following orders” from one source at
a time. The incorrect Aristotelian point of view has Because of friction, it is possible to change any one
great intuitive appeal, and beginning physics stu- of the weights slightly without causing the ring to
dents tend to make Aristotelian statements such as, move. This is a potential source of systematic er-
“The table’s force overcomes the force of gravity,” rors, but you can eliminate the error completely by
as if the forces were having a contest, in which the the following method. Find out how much you can
victor annihilated the loser. increase or decrease each weight without causing the
ring to move. Within the range of values that don’t
Self-Check
Do both a graphical calculation and an analytic cal-
culation in lab, without error analysis. Make sure
they give the same result. Do a rough check that
23
9 Acceleration In Two Dimensions
Apparatus
air track (small)
cart
photogate (PASCO) (under lab benches in rm. 418)
computer
air blowers
power strips for switching CENCO blowers on and
off
vernier calipers
wood blocks
Goal
Test whether the acceleration of gravity acts like a
vector. cart is only free to accelerate in the direction along
the track. There is almost no friction, since the cart
rides on a cushion of air coming through holes in the
Introduction track.
As noted in lab 2, one of the tricky techniques Galileo The speed of the cart at any given point can be mea-
had to come up with to study acceleration was to sured as follows. The photogate consists of a light
use objects rolling down an inclined plane rather and a sensor on opposite sides of the track. When
than falling straight down. That slowed things down the cart passes by, the cardboard vane on top blocks
enough so that he could measure the time intervals the light momentarily, keeping light from getting to
using a pendulum clock. Even though you were able, the sensor. The computer detects the electrical sig-
in lab 4, to use modern electronic timing techniques nal from the sensor, and records the amount of time,
to measure the short times involved in a vertical fall, tb , for which the photogate was blocked. Given tb ,
there is still some intrinsic interest in the idea of you can determine the approximate speed that cart
motion on an inclined plane. The reason it’s worth had when it passed through the photogate. The use
studying is that it reveals the vector nature of accel- of the computer software is explained in Appendix 6;
eration. of the three modes described there, you want to use
the software in the mode in which it measures the
Vectors rule the universe. Entomologists say that time interval over which the photogate was blocked.
God must have had an inordinate fondness for bee- Plug the photogate into the DG1 plug on the inter-
tles, because there are so many species of them. face box.
Well, God must also have had a special place in her
heart for vectors, because practically every natural
phenomenon she invented is a vector: gravitational Observations
acceleration, electric fields, nuclear forces, magnetic
fields, all the things that tie our universe together The basic idea is to release the cart at a distance x
are vectors. away from the photogate. The cart accelerates, and
you can determine its approximate speed, v, when it
passes through the photogate. (See prelab question
Setup P1. Make sure to use vernier calipers to measure the
width of the vane, w.) From v and x, you can find
The idea of the lab is that if acceleration really acts the acceleration. You will take data with the track
like a vector, then the cart’s acceleration should equal tilted at several different angles, to see whether the
the component of the earth’s gravitational accelera- cart’s acceleration always equals the component of g
tion vector that is parallel to the track, because the parallel to the track.
25
10 Conservation Laws
Apparatus is a statement that something always remains con-
stant when you add it all up. Most people have a
Part A: vacuum pump (Lapine) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 general intuitive idea that the amount of a substance
electronic balance (large capacity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 is conserved. That objects do not simply appear
plastic-coated flask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group or disappear is a conceptual achievement of babies
Part B: beaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group around the age of 9-12 months. Beginning at this
propyl alcohol 200 mL/group age, they will for instance try to retrieve a toy that
canola oil 200 mL/group they have seen being placed under a blanket, rather
funnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/group than just assuming that it no longer exists. Con-
100-mL volumetric flask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group servation laws in physics have the following general
rubber stopper, fitting in features:
volumetric flask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
1-ml pipette and bulb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group Physicists trying to find new conservation laws
magnetic stirrer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group will try to find a measurable, numerical quan-
triple-beam balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group tity, so that they can check quantitatively whether
it is conserved. One needs an operational def-
inition of the quantity, meaning a definition
that spells out the operations required to mea-
Goal sure it.
People believe that objects cannot be made to disap- Conservation laws are only true for closed sys-
pear or appear. If you start with a certain amount tems. For instance, the amount of water in a
of matter, there is no way to increase or decrease bottle will remain constant as long as no wa-
that amount. This type of rule is called a conser- ter is poured in or out. But if water can get in
vation law in physics, and this specific law states or out, we say that the bottle is not a closed
that the amount of matter is conserved, i.e., must system, and conservation of matter cannot be
stay the same. In order to make this law scientifi- applied to it.
cally useful, we must define more carefully how the
“amount” of a substance is to be defined and mea- The quantity should be additive. For instance,
sured numerically. Specifically, there are two issues the amount of energy contained in two gallons
that scientifically untrained people would probably of gasoline is twice as much as the amount of
not agree on: energy contained in one gallon; energy is addi-
tive. An example of a non-additive quantity is
temperature. Two cups of coffee do not have
Should air count as matter? If it has weight, twice as high a temperature as one cup.
then it probably should count. In this lab, you
will find out if air has weight, and, if so, mea- Conservation laws always refer to the total amount
sure its density. of the quantity when you add it all up. If you
add it all up at one point in time, and then
Should the amount of a substance be defined in come back at a later point in time and add it
terms of volume, or is mass more appropriate? all up, it will be the same.
In this lab, you will determine whether mass
and/or volume is conserved when water and How can we pin down more accurately the concept
alcohol are mixed. of the “amount of a substance”? Should a gallon
of shaving cream be considered “more substantial”
than a brick? At least two possible quantities come
Introduction to mind: mass and volume. Is either conserved?
Both? Neither? To find out, we will have to make
Styles in physics come and go, and once-hallowed
measurements.
principles get modified as more accurate data come
along, but some of the most durable features of the We can measure mass by the “see-saw method” —
science are its conservation laws. A conservation law when two children are sitting on the opposite sides
27
most accurate way to measure the volume of a liq- mL, weigh the flask, pipette in enough water to bring
uid is with a volumetric flask, which only allows one it up to 100 mL, weigh it again, and then figure out
specific, calibrated volume to be measured. what mass and volume of water you added based on
the change in mass. If it is more than 100 mL, weigh
the flask, pipette out enough of the mixture to bring
the volume down to 100 mL, weigh it again, and
make a similar calculation using the change in mass
and the density of the oil. If you need to pipette out
some oil, make sure to wash and rinse the pipette
thoroughly afterwards.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Give an example of two things having the same
mass and different densities.
P2 Give an example of two things having the same
density and different masses.
Here’s a way to get around those problems. Put the P3 Why can the density of water be given in a
magnetic stirrer inside the flask. Pour water through book as a standard value under conditions of stan-
a funnel into a volumetric flask, filling it less than dard temperature and pressure, while the mass of
half-way. (Do not use the pipette to transfer the water cannot?
water.) A common mistake is to fill the flask more
than half-way. Now pour a thin layer of cooking P4 What would your raw data in part A be like if
oil on top. Cooking oil does not mix with water, air had no weight? What would they be like if air
so it forms a layer on top of the water. (Set aside did have weight?
one funnel that you will use only for the oil, since P5 Referring to appendix 2, plan how you will es-
the oil tends to form a film on the sides.) Finally, timate your random errors.
gently pour the alcohol on top. Alcohol does not mix
with cooking oil either, so it forms a third layer. By P6 In part B, pick either mass or volume, and de-
making the alcohol come exactly up to the mark on scribe what your observations would be like if that
the calibrated flask, you can make the total volume quantity was not conserved.
very accurately equal to 100 mL. In practice, it is
hard to avoid putting in too much alcohol through
the funnel, so if necessary you can take some back
Self-Check
out with the pipette. Do a quick analysis of both parts without error anal-
If you put the whole thing on the balance now, you ysis. Plan how you will do your error analysis.
know both the volume (100 mL) and the mass of
the whole thing when the alcohol and water have
been kept separate. Now, mix everything up with
Analysis
the magnetic stirrer. The water and alcohol form a A. If your results show that air has weight, determine
mixture. You can now test whether the volume or the (nonzero) density of air, with an estimate of your
mass has changed. random errors.
If the mixture does not turn out to have a volume B. Decide whether volume and/or mass is conserved
that looks like exactly 100 mL, you can use the fol- when alcohol and water are mixed, taking into ac-
lowing tricks to measure accurately the excess or count your estimates of random errors.
deficit with respect to 100 mL. If it is less than 100
31
P2 Find the value of x from the figure below. (I’ve
made the centimeter scale unrealistic for readability
— the real track is more than a meter long, not 14
centimeters.)
P3 Check that the units of the two methods for
finding k agree.
Self-Check
Calculate the energies at the extremes, where P E =
0 and KE = 0, and see whether the energy is staying
roughly constant. You should do this self-check as
early as possible in the lab, so that you can make
sure you’re not spending lots of time collecting data
that turn out to be bogus.
Analysis
Graph P E, KE, and the total energy as functions
of x, with error bars (see appendices 1, 2, and 3),
all overlaid on the same plot. Make sure to include
the points with KE = 0 and P E = 0. As a shortcut
in your error analysis, it’s okay if you do the error
analysis for your most typical data-point, in which
the energy is split roughly 50-50 between PE and
KE, and then assume that the same error bars on
P E, KE, and total energy apply to all the other
points on the graph as well.
Discuss whether you think conservation of energy
has been verified.
First you’re going to observe some collisions between What happens now? Note that mathematically, we
two carts and see how conservation of momentum use positive and negative signs to indicate the direc-
plays out. If you really wanted to take numerical tion of a velocity in one dimension.
data, it would be a hassle, because momentum de- C An explosion
pends on mass and velocity, and there would be four
different velocity numbers you’d have to measure: Now start with the carts held together, with their
cart 1 before the collision, cart 1 after the collision, magnets repelling. As soon as you release them,
cart 2 before, and cart 2 after. To avoid all this com- they’ll break contact and fly apart due to the re-
plication, the first part of the lab will use only visual pulsion of the magnets.
observations. M × +M ×
Try gently pressing the two carts together on the =? M × +M × ,
track. As they come close to each other, you’ll feel Does momentum appear to have been conserved?
them repelling each other! That’s because they have
magnets built into the ends. The magnets act like D Head-on collision
perfect springs. For instance, if you hold one cart Now try a collision in which the two carts head to-
firmly in place and let the other one roll at it, the wards each other at equal speeds (meaning that one
incoming cart will bounce back at almost exactly the cart’s initial velocity is positive, while the other’s is
same speed. It’s like a perfect superball. negative).
A Equal masses, target at rest, elastic collision M × +M ×
Roll one cart toward the other. The target cart is =? M × +M × ,
initially at rest. Conservation of momentum reads
E Sticking
like this,
Arrange a collision in which the carts will stick to-
M × +M × gether rather than rebounding. You can do this by
=? M × +M × , letting the velcro ends hit each other instead of the
where the two blanks on the left stand for the two magnet ends. Make a collision in which the target is
carts’ velocities before the collision, and the two initially stationary.
blanks on the right are for their velocities after the M × +M ×
collision. All conservation laws work like this: the =? M × +M × ,
total amount of something remains the same. You
don’t have any real numbers, but just from eye- The collision is no longer perfectly springy. Did it
balling the collision, what seems to have happened? seem to matter, or was conservation of momentum
Let’s just arbitrarily say that the mass of a cart is still valid?
one unit, so that wherever it says “M x” in the equa-
tion, you’re just multiplying by one. You also don’t
35
13 Conservation of Momentum in Two Di-
mensions
Apparatus
photogate (PASCO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
small steel and plastic balls of various masses 2/group
plastic rulers
protractor
scotch tape
Goal
Test whether momentum is conserved in a collision
of two balls.
Introduction
Pool players have an intuitive feeling for conserva-
tion of momentum: they can visualize the results of
a collision of two pool balls in advance. They also
know that certain shots are impossible. For instance,
there is no way to make the cue ball bounce back di- balls using the photogate and the computer. The
rectly from a collision with another ball (except by use of the photogate and the computer software that
putting spin on it, which creates an external friction works with it is explained in Appendix 6. Since on
force with the felt). They understand that the angles any given trial you can only use the photogate to
are important, so without knowing it, they are doing measure the speed of a single ball, you will have to
mental estimates involving momentum as a vector: reproduce the collision at least three times to mea-
a quantity that has both magnitude and direction. sure the three speeds involved. Actually, you will
want to measure each of the three speeds several
In this lab, you will be studying collisions similar to times in order to get a good estimate of your ran-
the collision of the cue ball with an initially station- dom errors.
ary ball. One of the basic principles involved is the
conservation of momentum:
The Principle of Conservation of Momentum
No matter how a set of objects interact with each
other, as long as no external force is present, the
vector sum of their momenta is conserved. That is,
p1i + p2i + . . . = p1f + p2f + . . ., where the “. . . ”
means that if there are more than two objects in-
volved, all their momenta should be added like vec-
tors.
The technique
To reproduce the same initial speed for the projectile
(ball 1), you can build a little ramp out of two plastic
The idea is to set up an off-center collision, as shown rulers taped together at a 90-degree angle. A block
below, and measure the initial and final speeds of the of wood can be taped in the ramp at the top to keep
37
14 Torque
Apparatus Construct a setup like the one shown above. Avoid
any symmetry in your arrangement. There are four
meter stick with holes drilled in it . . . . . . . . 1/group forces acting on the meter stick:
spring scales, calibrated in newtons
FH = the weight hanging underneath
weights
string FM = Earth’s gravity on the meter stick itself
protractors FL = tension in the string on the left
hooks FR = tension in the string on the right
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
Observations P1 You have complete freedom in defining what
point is to be considered the axis of rotation — if
Weigh your meter stick before you do anything else;
one choice of axis causes the total torque to be zero,
they don’t all weigh the same amount.
then any other choice of axis will also cause the to-
For each spring scale, hang a known weight from it, tal torque to be zero. It is possible to simplify the
and adjust the calibration tab so that the scale gives analysis by choosing the axis so that one of the four
the correct result. torques is zero. Plan how you will do this.
38 Lab 14 Torque
P2 All the torques will be tending to cause rota-
tion in the same plane. You can therefore use plus
and minus signs to represent clockwise and counter-
clockwise torques. Choose which one you’ll call pos-
itive. Using your choice of axis, which of the four
torques, τH , τM , τL , and τR , will be negative, which
will be positive, and which will be zero?
P3 Suppose that in the figure above, the angle be-
tween the meter stick and the hanging weight is 80 ◦ ,
the mass of the hanging weight is 1 kg, and the mass
of the meter stick is 0.1 kg. If a student is then try-
ing to calculate the x components of the forces FM
and FH , why is it incorrect to say
and
Analysis
Determine the total force and total torque on the
meter stick. For the forces, I think a graphical cal-
culation will be easier than a numerical one.
Finally, repeat your calculation of the total torque
using a different point as your axis. Although you’re
normally expected to do your analysis completely in-
dependently, for this lab it’s okay if you find the total
torque for one choice of axis, and your lab partners
do the calculation their own choices.
Error analysis is not required. For extra credit, you
can do error analysis for one of your total torques.
39
15 The Moment of Inertia
Apparatus inertia was completely linear. In his view, all the
common examples of circular motion really involved
meter stick with hole in center . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group a force, which kept things from going straight. In
nail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group the case of a spinning top, for instance, Newton (a
fulcrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group confirmed atomist) would have visualized an atoms
slottedmass set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group in the top as being acted on by some kind of sticky
duct tape force from the other atoms, which would keep it from
sliding bracket to go on flying off straight. Linear motion was the simplest
meter stick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group type, needing no forces to keep it going. Circular
U-shaped hook for hanging motion was more complex, requiring a force to bend
weights from bracket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group the atoms’ trajectories into circles.
computer Vernier software
1/group photogate and adapter box . . . . . . .1/group Even though circular motion is inherently more com-
triple-beam balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group plicated than linear motion, some very close analo-
gies can be made between the two in the case where
an object is spinning rigidly. (An examples of non-
rigid rotation would be a hurricane, in which the
Goal inner parts complete a rotation more rapidly than
the outer parts.) In analogy to Newton’s first law,
Test the equation τtotal = Iα, which relates an ob- Ftotal = ma, we have
ject’s angular acceleration to its own moment of in-
ertia and to the total torque applied to it. τtotal = Iα ,
where the angular acceleration α replaces the linear
acceleration a, the total torque plays the role given
Introduction to the total force, and the moment of inertia I is
Newton’s first law, which states that motion in a used instead of the mass. In this lab, you are going
straight line goes on forever in the absence of a force, to release an unbalanced rotating system — a meter
was especially difficult for scientists to work out be- stick on an axle with weights attached to it — and
cause long-lasting circular motion seemed much more measure its angular acceleration in response to the
prevalent in the universe than long-lasting linear mo- nonzero gravitational torque on it.
tion. The sun, moon and stars appeared to move Every equation you learned for constant acceleration
in never-ending circular paths around the sky. A can also be adapted to the case of rotation with con-
spinning top could continue its motion for a much stant angular acceleration, simply by translating all
longer time than a book sliding across a table. Ren the variables. For instance, the equation vf2 = 2ax
Descartes (b. 1596) came close to stating a law of in- for an object accelerating from rest can be translated
ertia like Newton’s, but he thought that matter was into the valid rotational formula ωf2 = 2aθ.
made out of tiny spinning vortices, like whirlwinds
mr2 ,
P
of dust. Galileo, who among Newton’s predecessors The moment of inertia is defined as I =
came closest to stating a law of inertia, was also con- where m can be thought of as the mass of an indi-
fused by the issue of circular versus linear inertia. An vidual atom comprising the rotating body, and r is
advocate of the Copernican system, in which the ap- the distance of that atom from the axis of rotation.
parent rotation of the sun, stars and moon was due The word “moment” in “moment of inertia” does
to the Earth’s rotation, he knew that the apparently not refer to a moment in time, but is used instead
motionless ground, trees, and mountains around him in a more old-fashioned sense of “importance” or
must be moving in circles as the Earth turned. Was “weight,” as in “matters of great moment.” The
this because inertia naturally caused things to move idea is that the factor of r2 gives more importance
in circles? to the an atom that is far from the axis of rotation.
Newton, like other giants of science, saw how to focus Because the symbol I is used, there is a tendency
on the simple rather than the complex. His law of for students to refer to it as “inertia,” but inertia
is a different and nonquantitative concept, referring
41
Observations ∆θ. Measuring this angle accurately is there-
fore vital in order to get a good result. A
Now add the extra weight so that the meter stick protractor cannot measure an angle this small
is slightly unbalanced. The idea of this lab is to with sufficient accuracy. Use trigonometry to
release the meter stick and use the photogate to find determine this angle.
how quickly it is moving once it has rotated through
some angle, using the photogate to find the amount It’s easiest if you use radian measure through-
of time required for the tip of the meter stick to pass out. The equation τtotal = Iα is only true if a
through the photogate. From your measurement of is measured in radians/s2 .
∆t using the photogate, you can find ω = ∆θ/∆t,
which is an approximation to the meter stick’s final The sliding bracket and hook contribute both
angular velocity. Instructions for using the computer to the total torque and the moment of inertia,
software are given in appendix 6; you want the mode so you’ll have to weigh them.
for measuring how long the photogate was blocked.
Once you know the meter stick’s final value of ω, Prelab
you can extract the angular acceleration. This can
then be compared with the theoretical value of the The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
angular acceleration from τtotal = Iα. you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
Tips: you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
You may want to put something under the ful- you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
crum base to raise everything up higher. P1 Derive an equation for the experimental value
of the angular acceleration, expressed in terms of
Although the balanced configuration, with τtotal = quantities you will actually measure directly, includ-
0, still has τtotal = 0 no matter what angle it ing the quantities θ and ∆θ defined in the figure be-
is at, the torque exerted by the extra weight low. Note that this lab is exactly analogous to the
does depend a little on what angle the meter previous lab where you found a linear acceleration
stick is at. This is because of the factor of using a similar setup.
sin θ in the definition τ = rF sin θ. Since the
torque is not constant, the angular accelera-
tion is not constant, leading to complications.
You can avoid this problem by confining all
your measurements to a fairly small range of
positions near horizontal. As long as θ is fairly
close to 90 ◦ , sin θ is extremely close to 1, and
it is a good enough approximation to assume a
constant torque rF producing a constant an-
gular acceleration. For instance, as long as θ
is within 20 ◦ above or below horizontal, sin θ
changes by no more than 0.06.
Although you want to work only with nearly P2 Why would it not be meaningful to try to deal
horizontal positions of the meter stick so that with the meter stick’s velocity, rather than its angu-
the torque is approximately constant, you also lar velocity?
need to make sure that the total angle tra-
versed by the meter stick is still reasonably
large compared to the angle traversed while the Self-Check
meter stick is blocking the photogate. Other- Do all your analysis in lab.
wise your measurement of ω = ∆θ/∆t will not
be a good approximation to the final instanta-
neous angular velocity. Analysis
As you will find in your prelab, the angular ac- Extract theoretical and experimental values of the
celeration depends on the square of the angle angular acceleration from your data, and compare
43
16 Absolute Zero
Note to the lab technician: The dessicant needs to
be dry before the experiment. If it’s blue, it’s dry. If
it’s pink, it needs to be pumped on for a few hours
with a vacuum pump while heating it with a hair
dryer. Also, please put 2 liters of alcohol in a freezer
overnight, then put them in the ice chest.
Apparatus
gas capillary tube
large test tube
mercury thermometer
glass syringe
electric heating pad
oven mitts
latex tubing
ice
string
funnels point. (If you leave the thermometer in the water
clamps while it’s heating, you’ll be able to observe later the
gripper clamps interesting fact that the water stops heating up once
it reaches the boiling point.) If the water starts boil-
ing before you’re ready, just turn off the heat and
reheat it later – it doesn’t cool off very fast.
Introduction
The capillary tube is sealed at the bottom and open
If heat is a form of random molecular motion, then at the top, with a large bulb full of dessicant just
it makes sense that there is some minimum temper- below the top to keep the air inside dry. There is
ature at which the molecules aren’t moving at all. a small amount of mercury inside the tube. Right
With fancy equipment, physicists have gotten sam- now, the mercury is probably “floured,” i.e., broken
ples of matter to within a fraction of a degree above up into small pieces sticking on the sides of the tube.
absolute zero, but they have never actually reached The idea is to collect the mercury into a single drop,
absolute zero (and the laws of thermodynamics ac- with a sample of air trapped in the capillary tube
tually imply that they never can). Nevertheless, we under it. The mercury simply acts as a seal. As the
can determine how cold absolute zero is without even air is heated and cooled, it expands and contracts,
getting very close to it. Kinetic theory tells us that and you can measure its volume by watching the
the volume of an ideal gas is proportional to how mercury seal rise and drop. By the way, don’t be
high it is above absolute zero. In this lab, you’ll scared of the mercury; mercury vapor is a deadly
measure the volume of a sample of air at tempera- poison, but liquid mercury is entirely harmless unless
tures between 0 and 100 degrees C, and determine you ingest it or get it in an open cut. There is a small
where absolute zero lies by extrapolating to the tem- filter made of glass wool at the top end of the bulb,
perature at which it would have had zero volume. which will keep the mercury from getting out.
Remove the gas syringe from the box, being care-
Observations ful not to let the glass plunger drop out and break.
Connect it to the capillary tube with a piece of tub-
Tie a short piece of string to the thermometer so ing.
that you’ll be able to pull it back out of the beaker
when you want to without dipping your hands in First you need to get the mercury into a single blob
hot water. Start heating the water up to the boiling in the cavity at the top of the capillary, where it
widens out just below the bulb. If it’s already form-
45
17 The Clement-Desormes Experiment
Apparatus
large flask
glass syringe
water manometer
helium (medium size cylinder, $40 from Party City)
difluoroethane (sold in cans as gas duster at Fry’s)
stopwatch
hose clamps
grabber clamps
stands
Introduction
Although the theory that matter was made of atoms
started to be talked about seriously by scientists as
duction is a slow process, we can treat this as insu-
early as Galileo’s time, scientists generally didn’t
lated expansion, as discussed in Appendix 2 of Sim-
think of it as something that was literally true. They
ple Nature. If the gas is a monoatomic one, such
considered the atomic theory to be a useful model,
as helium, then the amount of cooling of the gas, as
but they thought that any fundamental explanation
proved in the book, is given by the relation T ∝ P b ,
of real-world phenomena should avoid talking about
where b = 2/5. If the gas is not monoatomic, how-
hypothetical things like atoms. This feeling was so
ever, then its molecules can rotate,1 and at any given
strong that the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, who
time some of its energy is in the form of kinetic en-
came up with an atomic explanation of entropy, was
ergy along the x, y, and z axes, but some is in the
driven to suicide by the harsh criticism to which his
form of rotational kinetic energy. Extracting a given
ideas were subjected. Even more suspect than the
amount of energy from a diatomic or polyatomic gas,
existence of atoms was any attempt to discuss things
therefore, doesn’t cool it as much as it would cool a
like the shapes of molecules that could be formed
monoatomic gas, and it turns out that b = 2/7 for a
by putting them together like tinkertoys; such ideas
diatomic gas, and 1/4 for a polyatomic gas.2
seemed much too far removed from the possibility of
any experimental testing. Wait one minute for the air to warm back up to room
temperature. The pressure comes back up somewhat
Surprisingly, then, a simple experiment, due to Clem-
as the air warms back up, and although you should
ent and Desormes, is capable of distinguishing two
wait a full minute to make sure it’s back in thermal
samples of gas that differ only by the shape of their
equilibrium, most of the rewarming occurs during
molecules, even if the gases have the same density
the first few seconds after you finish venting the ini-
and are composed of molecules having the same mass.
tial pressure. The pressure will recover to a value
Use the glass syringe to apply a slight overpressure p2 which is less than p1 . The ratio p2 /p1 gives the
to the air inside the flask, causing the difference in value of b for the gas.3
height between the water in the two sides of the
I’m still working on improving this lab. The ba-
manometer to be about 30 cm. Wait one minute
sic idea I have in mind is to have you do the lab
to make sure the air is in thermal equilibrium with
once with helium (monoatomic), air (diatomic), and
the room, and then take a pressure reading, p1 . Re-
lease the pressure by popping the cork for precisely 1 An individual atom in a monoatomic gas has essentially
one second, timed on a stopwatch. The air cools all its mass concentrated in the nucleus exactly at its center,
slightly due to its expansion, because it does me- so it takes an effectively infinite amount of energy to make it
rotate with a certain amount of angular momentum.
chanical work as it exits throught the valve. How- 2 You’ll often see this stated in terms of the variable γ =
ever, because the expansion is rapid, and heat con- 1/(1 − b), which takes on the values 5/3, 7/5, and 4/3.
3 In terms of the variable γ, we have γ = p /(p − p ).
1 1 2
47
18 The Pendulum
Apparatus Notation and Terminology
string When a moving thing, such as a wave, an orbit-
cylindrical pendulum bobs ing planet, a wheel, or a pendulum, goes through
hooked masses a repetitive cycle of motion, the time required for
protractor one complete cycle is called the period, T . Note
stopwatch that a pendulum visits any given point once while
computer with photogate and Vernier Timer soft- traveling in one direction and once while traveling
ware in the opposite direction. The period is defined as
clamps (not hooks) for holding the string how long it takes to come back to the same point,
tape measures traveling in the same direction.
meter sticks
Goal
Find out how the period of a pendulum depends on
its length and mass, and on the amplitude of its
swing. From a to g is one full period of the pendulum. From a
to e is not a full period. Even though the pendulum has
returned at e to its original position in a, it is moving in the
Introduction opposite direction, and has not performed every type of
motion it will ever perform.
Until the industrial revolution, the interest of the
world’s cultures in the measurement of time was al-
most entirely concentrated on the construction of
calendars, so that agricultural cycles could be an-
ticipated. Although the Egyptians were the first to
divide the day and night into 12 hours, there was no
technology for measuring time units smaller than a
day with great accuracy until four thousand years
later.
Galileo was the first to realize that a pendulum could
be used to measure time accurately — previously, he
had been using his own pulse to measure the time re-
quired for objects to roll down inclined planes. The
legend is that the idea came to him while he watched
The amplitude of a repetitive motion is a way of
a chandelier swinging during a church service. Sen-
describing the amount of motion. We can define
tenced to house arrest for suspicion of heresy, he
the amplitude, A, of the pendulum’s motion as the
spent the last years of his life trying to build a more
maximum angle to which it rises, i.e., half the total
practical pendulum clock that would run for long
angle swept out. Let us denote the mass of the bob,
periods of time without tending. This technical feat
or weight at the end of the pendulum, by m, and
was only achieved later by Christian Huygens. Along
the length of the pendulum, from the pivot to the
with the Chinese invention of the compass, accurate
middle of the weight, as L.
clocks were vital for European exploration by sea,
because longitude can only be determined by astro-
nomical observations combined with accurate mea- Observations
surements of time.
Make observations to determine how the period, T ,
depends on A, L, and m. You will want to use the
49
niques outlined in appendix 5 to see if you can find
an equation describing the relationship between the
period and that variable. Assume that the equation
is of the form
T = cxp ,
Goals
Observe the phenomenon of resonance.
Electrical setup, top view.
Investigate how the width of a resonance de-
pends on the amount of damping.
Introduction
To break a wine glass, an opera singer has to sing If the motor is stopped so that the arms are locked in
the right note. To hear a radio signal, you have to place, the metal disk can still swing clockwise and
be tuned to the right frequency. These are examples counterclockwise because it is attached to the up-
of the phenomenon of resonance: a vibrating system right rod with a flexible spiral spring. A push on the
will respond most strongly to a force that varies with disk will result in vibrations that persist for quite
a particular frequency. a while before the internal friction in the spring re-
duces their amplitude to an imperceptible level. This
would be an example of a free vibration, in which
energy is steadily lost in the form of heat, but no
external force pumps in energy to replace it.
Suppose instead that you initially stop the disk, but
then turn on the electric motor. There is no rigid
mechanical link to the disk, since the motor and disk
are only connected through the very flexible spiral
spring. But the motor will gently tighten and loosen
the spring, resulting in the gradual building up of a
vibration in the disk.
Observations
Simplified mechanical drawing of the vibrator, front view. A Period of Free Vibrations
Start without any of the electrical stuff hooked up.
Twist the disk to one side, release it, and determine
Apparatus its period of vibration. (Both here and at points
later in the lab, you can improve your accuracy by
In this lab you will investigate the phenomenon of timing ten periods and dividing the result by ten.)
resonance using the apparatus shown in the figure. This is the natural period of the vibrations, i.e., the
1 or HP6204B 40-volt supplies, if the Leybold supplies period with which they occur in the absence of any
aren’t bought because of budget issues driving force.
52 Lab 19 Resonance
B Damping ing the move. To compensate for this, the currents
Note the coils of wire at the bottom of the disk. you should use should be based on which oscillator
These are electromagnets. Their purpose is not to you have. Groups 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 should use
attract the disk magnetically (in fact the disk is the oscillators labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, B, and D, respec-
made of a nonmagnetic metal) but rather to increase tively. If your oscillator is 2, 3, or 5, you should use
the amount of damping in the system. Whenever a 300 mA for the low current and 600 mA for the high;
metal is moved through a magnetic field, the elec- if it’s 1, 4, B, or D, use 225 and 450 mA. You will be
trons in the metal are made to swirl around. As using these two current values throughout the lab.
they eddy like this, they undergo random collisions C Frequency of Driven Vibration
with atoms, causing the atoms to vibrate. Vibration
of atoms is heat, so where did this heat energy come Now connect the 24 V AC power supply to the mo-
from ultimately? In our system, the only source of tor.2 The motor has coarse (0 to 100) and fine (-6 to
energy is the energy of the vibrating disk. The net +6) adjustment knobs. (On the older models these
effect is thus to suck energy out of the vibration and are marked “groβ” and “fein,” and have different
convert it into heat. Although this magnetic and scales.) These knobs are not calibrated in Hz, and
electrical effect is entirely different from mechanical their readings don’t even correlate linearly with fre-
friction, the result is the same. Creating damping in quency, so to measure the frequency of the motor
this manner has the advantage that it can be made you need to use the stopwatch. However, it can be
stronger or weaker simply by increasing or decreas- useful to write down the knob settings that produced
ing the strength of the magnetic field. a particular frequency, so that you can reproduce it
later. The older motors don’t control their frequency
Turn off all the electrical equipment and leave it un- as accurately as the newer ones, so if you have one
plugged. Connect the circuit shown in the top left of these you should do the low-Q setup in part F.
of the electrical diagram, consisting of a power sup-
ply to run the electromagnet plus a meter . You do Set the damping current to the higher of the two
not yet need the power supply for driving the motor. values. Turn on the motor and drive the system at a
The meter will tell you how much electrical current frequency very different from its natural frequency.
is flowing through the electromagnet, which will give You will notice that it takes a certain amount of
you a numerical measure of how strong your damp- time, perhaps a minute or two, for the system to
ing is. It reads out in units of amperes (A), the settle into a steady pattern of vibration. This is
metric unit of electrical current. Although this does called the steady-state response to the driving force
not directly tell you the amount of damping force in of the motor.
units of newtons (the force depends on velocity), the Does the system respond by vibrating at its natural
force is proportional to the current. frequency, at the same frequency as the motor, or at
Once you have everything hooked up, check with some frequency in between?
your instructor before plugging things in and turn-
D Resonance
ing them on. If you do the setup wrong, you could
blow a fuse, which is no big deal, but a more seri- With your damping current still set to the higher
ous goof would be to put too much current through value, try different motor frequencies, and observe
the electromagnet, which could burn it up, perma- how strong the steady-state response is. At what
nently ruining it. Once your instructor has checked motor frequency do you obtain the strongest response?
this part of the electrical setup she/he will show you When changing from one frequency to another, you
how to monitor the current on the meter to make have to allow time for the vibrator to reach its steady
sure that you never have too much. state. To make it easier to tell when the steady state
The Q of an oscillator is defined as the number of is happening, it helps if you stop the vibration by
oscillations required for damping to reduce the en- hand after changing the frequency; otherwise you
ergy of the vibrations by a factor of 535 (a defini- can get complicated patterns of motion in which the
tion originating from the quantity e2π ). As planned exponentially decaying motion left over from the old
in your prelab, measure the Q of the system with frequency happens on top of the new driven motion.
the electromagnet turned off, then with a low cur-
rent through the electromagnet, and then a higher 2 We will probably get the 24 V AC power supplies some-
current. There are differences among the oscillators, time in 2009. If we don’t have those yet, use one of the power
possibly because they were dropped on the floor dur- supplies in the lab benches in 416T, setting it on 12 V and
connecting to the +12 and −12 V plugs.
53
You can save yourself some time if you think of this from the graph,
part and part F as one unit, and plan ahead so that
the data you take now are also the data you need for
part F. Analysis
E Resonance Strength Compare your observations in parts C, D, and E
with theory.
Set the motor to the resonant frequency, i.e., the
frequency at which you have found you obtain the For part F, construct graphs with the square of the
strongest response. Now measure the amplitude of amplitude on the y axis and the frequency on the
the vibrations you obtain with each of the two damp- x axis. The reason for using the square of the am-
ing currents. How does the strength of the resonance plitude is that the standard way of specifying the
depend on damping? width of a resonance peak is to give its full width at
half resonance (FWHM), which is measured between
With low amounts of damping, I have sometimes en-
the two points where the energy of the steady-state
countered a problem where the system, when driven
vibration equals half its maximum value. Energy is
near resonance, never really settles down into a steady
proportional to the square of the amplitude. Deter-
state. The amplitude varies dramatically from one
mine the FWHM of the resonance for each value of
minute to the next, perhaps because the power sup-
the damping current, and find whether the expected
ply is not stable enough to control the driving fre-
relationship exists between Q and FWHM; make a
quency consistently enough. If this happens to you,
numerical test, not just a qualitative one. Obviously
check with your instructor.
there is no way you can get an accurate FWHM if
F Width of the Resonance the peak is only as wide as a pencil on the graph —
make an appropriate choice of the range of frequen-
Now measure the response of the system for a large cies on the x axis.
number of driving frequencies, so that you can graph
the resonance curve and determine the width of the
resonance. Concentrate on the area near the top
and sides of the peak, which is what’s important for
finding the full width at half maximum (FWHM).
To make this part less time-consuming, your instruc-
tor will assign your group to do only one of the two
graphs, low-Q or high-Q. Each group will have their
own data for one Q and another group’s data for
another Q.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Plan how you will determine the Q of your os-
cillator in part B. [Hint: Note that the energy of a
vibration is proportional to the square of the ampli-
tude.]
Self-Check
Make your graphs for part F (see below), and see if
they make sense. Make sure to make the frequency
axis expanded enough to get an accurate FWHM
54 Lab 19 Resonance
55
20 Resonance (short version for physics
222)
This is a simplified version of lab 19, meant to in-
troduce some concepts related to mechanical reso-
nance, without any detailed data-taking. The idea
is to reinforce the relevant concepts from physics 221
so that they can be used as a metaphor for electrical
resonances in 222.
Apparatus
vibrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
Thornton power supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
multimeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
banana plug cables Simplified mechanical drawing of the vibrator, front view.
Goals
Observe the phenomenon of resonance.
Introduction
To break a wine glass, an opera singer has to sing
the right note. To hear a radio signal, you have to
be tuned to the right frequency. These are examples
of the phenomenon of resonance: a vibrating system Electrical setup, top view.
will respond most strongly to a force that varies with
a particular frequency.
Suppose instead that you initially stop the disk, but
Apparatus then turn on the electric motor. There is no rigid
mechanical link to the disk, since the motor and disk
In this lab you will investigate the phenomenon of are only connected through the very flexible spiral
resonance using the apparatus shown in the figure. spring. But the motor will gently tighten and loosen
If the motor is stopped so that the arms are locked in the spring, resulting in the gradual building up of a
place, the metal disk can still swing clockwise and vibration in the disk.
counterclockwise because it is attached to the up-
right rod with a flexible spiral spring. A push on the
disk will result in vibrations that persist for quite Observations
a while before the internal friction in the spring re-
duces their amplitude to an imperceptible level. This A Period of Free Vibrations
would be an example of a free vibration, in which Start without any of the electrical stuff hooked up.
energy is steadily lost in the form of heat, but no Twist the disk to one side, release it, and use the
external force pumps in energy to replace it. stopwatch to determine its natural period of vibra-
57
-180 ◦ would represent the same thing: the oscilla- tude.]
tions have phases that are exactly the opposite. Try
to estimate roughly what the phase angle is. You
don’t have any way to measure it accurately, but you
should be able to estimate it to the nearest multiple
of 45 ◦ . Measure the amplitude of the steady-state
response as well.
Now measure the phase and amplitude of the re-
sponse when the driving force is at the resonant fre-
quency.
Finally, do the same measurements when the driving
force is significantly above resonance.
Analysis
The point of this is to connect the mechanical analog
to what you know about the phase response of a
resonant LRC circuit. You’re measuring the phase
between F and x, which is analogous to the phase
between V and q in electrical terms. However, most
people think of AC circuits in terms of V and I, not
V and q. The phase relationships you’re expecting,
therefore, are those that would hold between F and
v = dx/dt, which differ by 90 degrees from the F − x
phases you actually measured as raw data.
To complete the electrical analogy, we would really
prefer to discuss the mechanical analog of impedance.
The (constant) driving force from the motor plays
the role of the voltage, while the frequency-dependent
amplitude of the vibration plays the role of the cur-
rent. Dividing these two quantities gives us some-
thing analogous to impedance, and since the driving
force is always the same, we can say that the in-
verse of the amplitude is essentially a measure of
the impedance.
To summarize, you have a complex impedance whose
amplitude and phase angle you can determine from
your data. Plot the impedances at the various fre-
quencies in the complex plane.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Plan how you will determine the Q of your os-
cillator in part B. [Hint: Note that the energy of a
vibration is proportional to the square of the ampli-
Self-Check
Do your analysis in lab.
Analysis
Use the techniques given in appendix 5 to see if you
can find a power-law relationship between the veloc-
61
22 Resonances of Sound
Apparatus to westerners partly because the various gongs and
cymbals have overtones that are not integer multi-
wave generator (PASCO PI-9587C) . . . . . . . 1/group ples of the fundamental.)
speaker (Thornton) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
100 mL graduated cylinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group One of the things that would make “A” on a clarinet
Linux computers with FFT Explorer installed (in sound different from “A” on a saxophone is that the
416 and 416P) 880 Hz overtone would be quite strong for the sax-
flexible whistling tube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 ophone, but almost entirely missing for the clarinet.
tuning fork marked with frequency, mounted on a Although Helmholtz thought the relative strengths
wooden box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 of the overtones was the whole story when it came
aluminum rod, 3/4-inch dia, about 1 m long to musical timbre, actually it is more complex than
2 that, which is why electronic synthesizers still do not
sound as good as acoustic instruments. The timbre
depends not just on the general strength of the over-
Goals tones but on the details of how they first build up
(the attack) and how the various overtones fade in
Find the resonant frequencies of the air inside and out slightly as the note continues.
a cylinder by two methods.
Why do different instruments have different sound
Measure the speeds of sound in air and in alu- spectra, and why, for instance, does a saxophone
minum. have an overtone that the clarinet lacks? Many mu-
sical instruments can be analyzed physically as tubes
that have either two open ends, two closed ends, or
Introduction one open end and one closed end. The overtones
correspond to specific resonances of the air column
In the womb, your first sensory experiences were of inside the tube. A complete treatment of the subject
your mother’s voice, and soon after birth you learned is given in your textbook, but the basic principle is
to distinguish the particular sounds of your parents’ that the resonant standing waves in the tube must
voices from those of strangers. The human ear-brain have an antinode (point of maximum vibration) at
system is amazingly sophisticated in its ability to any closed end of the tube, and a node (point of zero
classify vowels and consonants, recognize people’s vibration) at any open end.
voices, and analyze musical sound. Until the 19th-
century investigations of Helmholtz, the whole pro-
Using the Wave Generator
cess was completely mysterious. How could we so
easily tell a cello from a violin playing the same note?
A radio station in Chicago has a weekly contest in The wave generator works like the amplifier of your
which jazz fanatics are asked to identify instrumen- stereo, but instead of playing a CD, it produces a
talists simply by their distinctly individual timbres sine wave whose frequency and amplitude you can
— how is this possible? control. By connecting it to a speaker, you can con-
vert its electrical currents to sound waves, making
Helmholtz found (using incredibly primitive nonelec-
a pure tone. The frequency of the sine wave cor-
tronic equipment) that part of the answer lay in the
responds to musical pitch, and the amplitude cor-
relative strengths of the overtones. The psychologi-
responds to loudness. Use the output labeled LO
cal sensation of pitch is related to frequency, e.g., 440
Ω. The wave generator can create enough voltage to
Hz is the note “A.” But a saxophonist playing the
give a mildly unpleasant tingling sensation in your
note “A” is actually producing a rich spectrum of
hand if you touch the leads. None of the electri-
frequencies, including 440 Hz, 880 Hz, 1320 Hz, and
cal apparatus used in this lab, however, is any more
many other multiples of the lowest frequency, known
dangerous than a home TV or stereo.
as the fundamental. The ear-brain system perceives
all these overtones as a single sound because they are
all multiples of the fundamental frequency. (The Ja-
vanese orchestra called the gamelan sounds strange
63
can lay a ruler on the screen, and interpolate fairly lem is that we then need to infer what the pattern is.
accurately. Since you hold the rod at its center, friction should
very rapidly damp out any mode of vibration that
Once you have done these warmups, you are ready to
has any motion at the center. Therefore there must
analyze the sound from the whistling tube. You only
be a node at the center. We also know that at the
need to analyze data from one frequency, although
ends, the rod has nothing to interact with but the
if you’re not sure which mode you produced, it may
air, and therefore there is essentially no way for any
be helpful to observe the pattern of the frequencies.
significant amount of wave energy to leak out; we
(If you guess wrong about which mode it was, you’ll
therefore expect that waves reaching the ends have
find out, because the value you extract for the speed
100% of their energy reflected. Since energy is pro-
of sound will be way off.)
portional to the square of amplitude, this means
C The Speed of Sound in Aluminum that a wave with unit amplitude can be reflected
from the ends with an amplitude of either R = +1
The speed of sound in dense solid is much faster
(100% uninverted reflection) or −1 (100% inverted).
than its speed in air. In this part of the lab, you
In the R = −1 case, the reflected wave would can-
will extract the speed of sound in aluminum from
cel out the incident wave at the end of the rod, and
a measurement of the lowest resonant frequency of
we would have a node at the end, as in lab 21. In
a solid aluminum rod. You will use the computer
the R = +1 case, there would be an antinode. But
for an electronic measurement of the frequency, as
when you tap the end of the rod on the floor, you are
in part B.
evidently exciting wave motion by moving the end,
Grab the rod with two fingers exactly in the middle, and it would not be possible to excite vibrations by
hold it vertically, and tap it on the floor. You will this method if the vibrations had no motion at the
hear two different notes sounding simultaneously. A end. We therefore conclude that the rod’s pattern
quick look at their frequencies shows that they are of vibration must have a node at the center, and
not in a 2:1 ratio as we would expect based on our antinode at the ends. There is an infinite number of
experiences with symmetric wave patterns. This is possible wave patterns of this kind, but we will as-
because these two frequencies in the rod are actu- sume that the pattern that is excited strongly is the
ally two different types of waves. The higher note is one with the longest wavelength, i.e., the only node
produced by longitudinal compression waves, which is at the center, and the only antinodes are those at
means that an individual atom of aluminum is mov- the ends. If you feel like it, there are a couple of
ing up and down the length of the rod. This type possible tests you can try do to check whether this
of wave is analogous to sound waves in air, which is the right interpretation. One is to see if you can
are also longitudinal compression waves. The lower detect any other frequencies of longitudinal vibra-
note comes from transverse vibrations, like a vibrat- tion that are excited weakly. Another is to predict
ing guitar string. In the transverse vibrations, atoms where the other nodes would be, if there were more
are moving from side to side, and the rod as a whole than one, and then see if the vibration is killed by
is bending. touching the rod there with your other hand; if there
is a node there, touching it should have no effect.
If you listen carefully, you can tell that the trans-
verse vibration (the lower note) dies out quickly, but
the longitudinal mode keeps going for a long time.
That gives you an easy way to isolate the longitudi-
Prelab
nal mode, which is the one we’re interested in; just The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
wait for the transverse wave to die out before you you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
freeze the graph on the computer. ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
The rod is symmetric, so we expect its longitudi-
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
nal wave patterns to be symmetric, like those of the
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
whistling tube. The rod is different, however, be-
cause whereas we can excite a variety of wave pat- P1 Find an equation to predict the frequencies of
terns in the tube by spinning it at different speeds, the resonances in parts A and B. Note that they
we find we only ever get one frequency from the rod will not be the same equations, since one tube is
by tapping it at its end: it appears that there is symmetric and the other is asymmetric.
only one logitudinal wave pattern that can be ex-
cited strongly in the rod by this method. The prob-
Analysis
Make a graph of wavelength versus period for the
resonances of the graduated cylinder, check whether
it looks like it theoretically should, and if so, find
the speed of sound from its slope, with error bars,
as discussed in appendix 4.
Use the data from part B to find a second value of
the speed of sound, also with error bars.
The effective length of the cylinder in part A should
be increased by 0.4 times its diameter to account for
the small amount of air beyond the end that also vi-
brates. For part B, where the whistling tube is open
at both ends, you should add 0.8 times its diameter.
When estimating error bars from part B, you may
be tempted to say that it must be perfectly accurate,
since its being done by a computer. Not so! You will
see that the peak is a little ragged, and that means
you cannot find the frequency with perfect accuracy.
Extract the speed of sound in aluminum from your
data in part C, including error bars.
65
23 Static Electricity
Apparatus the same “colors” is repulsive: red repels red, green
repels green, and blue repels blue. The force be-
scotch tape tween two different “colors” is attractive: red and
rubber rod green attract each other, as do green and blue, and
heat lamp red and blue.
fur
bits of paper When your freshly laundered socks cling together,
rods and strips of various materials that is an example of an electrical force. If the grav-
30-50 cm rods, and angle brackets, for hanging charged itational force involves one type of mass, and the
rods nuclear force involves three colors, how many types
of electrical “stuff” are there? In the days of Ben-
jamin Franklin, some scientists thought there were
two types of electrical “charge” or “fluid,” while oth-
Goal ers thought there was only a single type. In this lab,
you will try to find out experimentally how many
Determine the qualitative rules governing electrical types of electrical charge there are.
charge and forces.
Observations
Introduction
Stick a piece of scotch tape on a table, and then lay
Newton’s law of gravity gave a mathematical for- another piece on top of it. Pull both pieces off the
mula for the gravitational force, but his theory also table, and then separate them. If you now bring
made several important non-mathematical statements them close together, you will observe them exerting
about gravity: a force on each other. Electrical effects can also be
created by rubbing the fur against the rubber rod.
Every mass in the universe attracts every other Your job in this lab is to use these techniques to
mass in the universe. test various hypotheses about electric charge. The
most common difficulty students encounter is that
Gravity works the same for earthly objects as
the charge tends to leak off, especially if the weather
for heavenly bodies.
is humid. If you have charged an object up, you
The force acts at a distance, without any need should not wait any longer than necessary before
for physical contact. making your measurements. It helps if you keep your
hands dry.
Mass is always positive, and gravity is always
attractive, not repulsive. A Repulsion and/or attraction
Test the following hypotheses. Note that they are
The last statement is interesting, especially because mutually exclusive, i.e., only one of them can be true.
it would be fun and useful to have access to some A1) Electrical forces are always attractive.
negative mass, which would fall up instead of down
(like the “upsydaisium” of Rocky and Bullwinkle A2) Electrical forces are always repulsive.
fame). A3) Electrical forces are sometimes attractive and
Although it has never been found, there is no theo- sometimes repulsive.
retical reason why a second, negative type of mass Interpretation: Once you think you have tested these
can’t exist. Indeed, it is believed that the nuclear hypotheses fairly well, discuss with your instructor
force, which holds quarks together to form protons what this implies about how many different types of
and neutrons, involves three qualities analogous to charge there might be.
mass. These are facetiously referred to as “red,”
“green,” and “blue,” although they have nothing to
do with the actual colors. The force between two of
C4) There are two types of electric charge. Like (6) “We know there were two types of charge, not
charges attract and opposite charges repel. three, because we observed two types of interactions,
attraction and repulsion.”
C5) There are three types of electric charge, X, Y
and Z. Like charges repel and unlike charges attract.
The only way to keep all your observations straight Writeup
is to make a square table, in which the rows and Explain what you have concluded about electrical
columns correspond to the different objects you’re charge and forces. Base your conclusions on your
testing against each other for attraction and repul- data!
67
Notes For Next Week
(1) Next week, when you turn in your writeup for
this lab, you also need to turn in a prelab writeup
for the next lab. The prelab questions are listed
at the end of the description of that lab in the lab
manual. Never start a lab without understanding
the answers to all the prelab questions; if you turn
in partial answers or answers you’re unsure of, dis-
cuss the questions with your instructor or with other
students to make sure you understand what’s going
on.
(2) You should exchange phone numbers with your
lab partners for general convenience throughout the
semester. You can also get each other’s e-mail ad-
dresses by logging in to Spotter and clicking on “e-
mail.”
Introduction
One of the main differences you will notice between
your second semester of physics and the first is that
many of the phenomena you will learn about are
not directly accessible to your senses. For example,
electric fields, the flow of electrons in wires, and the
inner workings of the atom are all invisible. The
oscilloscope is a versatile laboratory instrument that Most of the voltages we wish to measure are not big
can indirectly help you to see what’s going on. enough to use directly for the vertical deflection volt-
age, so the oscilloscope actually amplifies the input
The Oscilloscope voltage, i.e., the small input voltage is used to con-
trol a much large voltage generated internally. The
amount of amplification is controlled with a knob on
An oscilloscope graphs an electrical signal that varies the front of the scope. For instance, setting the knob
as a function of time. The graph is drawn from left to on 1 mV selects an amplification such that 1 mV at
right across the screen, being painted in real time as the input deflects the electron beam by one square
the input signal varies. In this lab, you will be using of the 1-cm grid. Each 1-cm division is referred to
the signal from a microphone as an input, allowing as a “division.”
you to see sound waves.
The input signal is supplied in the form of a voltage. The Time Base and Triggering
You are already familiar with the term “voltage”
from common speech, but you may not have learned
Since the X axis represents time, there also has to
the formal definition yet in the lecture course. Volt-
be a way to control the time scale, i.e., how fast
age, measured in metric units of volts (V), is defined
the imaginary ”penpoint” sweeps across the screen.
as the electrical potential energy per unit charge.
For instance, setting the knob on 10 ms causes it to
For instance if 2 nC of charge flows from one ter-
sweep across one square in 10 ms. This is known as
minal of a 9-volt battery to the other terminal, the
the time base.
potential energy consumed equals 18 nJ. To use a
mechanical analogy, when you blow air out between In the figure, suppose the time base is 10 ms. The
Setup
To start with, we’ll use a sine wave generator, which
makes a voltage that varies sinusoidally with time.
This gives you a convenient signal to work with while
you get the scope working. Use the black and white
outputs on the PI-9587C.
The figure on the last page is a simplified drawing
of the front panel of a digital oscilloscope, showing
only the most important controls you’ll need for this
scope has 10 divisions, so the total time required for lab. When you turn on the oscilloscope, it will take
the beam to sweep from left to right would be 100 a while to start up.
ms. This is far too short a time to allow the user
to examine the graph. The oscilloscope has a built-
Preliminaries:
in method of overcoming this problem, which works
well for periodic (repeating) signals. The amount
of time required for a periodic signal to perform its
pattern once is called the period. With a periodic Press DEFAULT SETUP.
signal, all you really care about seeing what one pe-
riod or a few periods in a row look like — once you’ve Use the SEC/DIV knob to put the time base
seen one, you’ve seen them all. The scope displays on something reasonable compared to the pe-
one screenful of the signal, and then keeps on over- riod of the signal you’re looking at. The time
laying more and more copies of the wave on top of base is displayed on the screen, e.g., 10 ms/div,
the original one. Each trace is erased when the next or 1 s/div.
one starts, but is being overwritten continually by
later, identical copies of the wave form. You simply Use the VOLTS/DIV knob to put the voltage
see one persistent trace. scale (Y axis) on a reasonable scale compared
to the amplitude of the signal you’re looking
How does the scope know when to start a new trace?
at.
If the time for one sweep across the screen just hap-
pened to be exactly equal to, say, four periods of the
The scope has two channels, i.e., it can ac-
signal, there would be no problem. But this is un-
cept input through two BNC connectors and
likely to happen in real life — normally the second
display both or either. You’ll only be using
trace would start from a different point in the wave-
channel 1, which is the only one represented in
form, producing an offset copy of the wave. Thou-
the simplified drawing. By default, the oscil-
sands of traces per second would be superimposed
loscope draws graphs of both channels’ inputs;
on the screen, each shifted horizontally by a differ-
to get rid of ch. 2, hold down the CH 2 MENU
ent amount, and you would only see a blurry band
button (not shown in the diagram) for a couple
of light.
of seconds. You also want to make sure that
To make sure that each trace starts from the same the scope is triggering on CH 1, rather than
point in the waveform, the scope has a triggering cir- CH 2. To do that, press the TRIG MENU
cuit. You use a knob to set a certain voltage level, button, and use an option button to select CH
the trigger level, at which you want to start each 1 as the source. Set the triggering mode to
trace. The scope waits for the input to move across normal, which is the mode in which the trig-
the trigger level, and then begins a trace. Once that gering works as I’ve described above. If the
trace is complete, it pauses until the input crosses trigger level is set to a level that the signal
the trigger level again. To make extra sure that it is never actually reaches, you can play with the
really starting over again from the same point in the knob that sets the trigger level until you get
waveform, you can also specify whether you want to something. A quick and easy way to do this
start on an increasing voltage or a decreasing volt- without trial and error is to use the SET TO
71
50automatically sets the trigger level to mid- the same as what’s written on the tuning fork.
way between the top and bottom peaks of the
Don’t crank the gain on the amplifier all the way
signal.
up. If you do, the amplifier will put out a distorted
You want to select AC, not DC or GND, on waveform. Use the highest gain you can use without
the channel you’re using. You are looking at causing distortion.
a voltage that is alternating, creating an al-
ternating current, “AC.” The “DC” setting is
only necessary when dealing with constant or Observations
very slowly varying voltages. The “GND” sim-
A Periodic and nonperiodic speech sounds
ply draws a graph using y = 0, which is only
useful in certain situations, such as when you Try making various speech sounds that you can sus-
can’t find the trace. To select AC, press the tain continuously: vowels or certain consonants such
CH 1 MENU button, and select AC coupling. as “sh,” “r,” “f” and so on. Which are periodic and
which are not?
Observe the effect of changing the voltage scale and Note that the names we give to the letters of the
time base on the scope. Try changing the frequency alphabet in English are not the same as the speech
and amplitude on the sine wave generator. sounds represented by the letter. For instance, the
You can freeze the display by pressing RUN/STOP, English name for “f” is “ef,” which contains a vowel,
and then unfreeze it by pressing the button again. “e,” and a consonant, “f.” We are interested in the
basic speech sounds, not the names of the letters.
Also, a single letter is often used in the English writ-
Preliminary Observations ing system to represent two sounds. For example,
the word “I” really has two vowels in it, “aaah” plus
Now try observing signals from the microphone. By “eee.”
feeding the mic’s signal through the amplifier and
then to the scope, you can make the signals easier B Loud and soft
to see. What differentiates a loud “aaah” sound from a soft
As of fall 2008, we’re in the process of testing a bet- one?
ter mic (Shure brand) to replace the Radio Shack
C High and low pitch
ones. We have one of the Shure ones. If your group
is the one that gets it, please relay the information Try singing a vowel, and then singing a higher note
about how it worked through your instructor and with the same vowel. What changes?
back to Ben Crowell. Some notes about this mic: As
D Differences among vowel sounds
with the Radio Shack mics, polarity matters. The
tip of the phono plug connector is the live connec- What differentiates the different vowel sounds?
tion, and the part farther back from the tip is the
grounded part. You can connect on to the phono E Lowest and highest notes you can sing
plug with alligator clips. You don’t need the am- What is the lowest frequency you can sing, and what
plifier. Notes for instructors: This mic was $30 at is the highest?
Fry’s. It has an unusually high gain, -52 dBV/Pa at
1 kHz, which helps to make the signals clean enough
to see well on a scope without preamplification. Its Prelab
output impedance is 600 ohms. The main reason the
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
RS 33-1067 mics have a poorer S/N ratio is that the
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
cables are not coax, so they pick up a lot of noise
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
in differential mode. The RS 33-3013 mics are not
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
really any better for this application; although they
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
do have coax cables, they have a very low gain. We
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
should buy phono-to-BNC connectors for the Shure
mics. P1 In the sample oscilloscope trace shown on page
70, what is the period of the waveform? What is its
Once you have your setup working, try measuring
frequency? The time base is 10 ms.
the period and frequency of the sound from a tuning
fork, and make sure your result for the frequency is P2 In the same example, again assume the time
Analysis
The format of the lab writeup can be informal. Just
describe clearly what you observed and concluded.
73
A simplified diagram of the controls on a digital oscilloscope.
Apparatus
oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
optical bench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
HP function generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
transducers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/group
Goal
Measure the speed of sound.
Setup
The setup is shown below. A transducer is a de-
Introduction vice capable of acting as either a speaker or a micro-
There are several simple methods for getting a rough phone. The function generator is used to create a
estimate of the speed of sound, for instance tim- voltage that varies sinusoidally over time. This volt-
ing an echo, or watching the kettledrum player at age is connected through two coax cables, to the os-
a symphony and seeing how long the sound takes to cilloscope and the first transducer, used as a speaker.
arrive after you see the mallet strike the drumhead. The sound waves travel from the first transducer to
The latter method, comparing vision against hear- the second transducer, used as a microphone. You
ing, assumes that the speed of light is much greater will be using both channels of the scope to display
than the speed of sound, the same assumption that graphs of two waveforms at the same time on the
is used when estimating the distance to a lightning oscilloscope. As you slide one transducer along the
strike based on the interval between the flash and optical bench, changing the distance between them,
the thunder. The assumption is a good one, since you will change the phase of one wave relative to the
light travels about a million times faster than sound. other. Thus, you can determine the distance corre-
Military jets routinely exceed the speed of sound, sponding to a given number of wavelengths and ex-
but no human has ever traveled at speeds even re- tract the wavelength of the sound waves accurately.
motely comparable to that of light. (The electrons The wavelength of the sound will be roughly a few
in your television set are moving at a few percent of cm. The frequency can be read from the knob on
the speed of light, and velocities of 0.999999999999 the function generator. (The time scale of an os-
times the speed of light can be attained in particle cilloscope typically has a systematic error of about
accelerators. According to Einstein’s theory of rela- 2-5%, so you should not use a measurement of the
tivity, motion faster than light is impossible.) period from the scope for this purpose.)
In this lab, you will make an accurate measurement When setting up the scope, you will need to select
of the speed of sound by measuring the wavelength one channel or the other to trigger on. You can
and frequency of a pure tone (sine wave) and com- select the voltage scales for the two channels inde-
puting pendently, but they always have the same time base.
v = λf . The most common problem in this lab is that some
electrical current gets through the metal optical bench,
We will be using sound with a frequency of about causing the receiving transducer to pick up the orig-
35-40 kHz, which is too high to be audible. This has inal input signal directly, rather than by receiving
the advantage of eliminating the annoying din of six the sound waves. A precaution that usually works
lab groups producing sine waves at once. Such high- is to connect the optical bench to the ground con-
frequency, inaudible sound is known as ultrasound. tact of the scope (use an alligator clip to attach to
Ultrasound at even higher frequencies, in the MHz the body of the bench). It is easy to check whether
77
26 Electrical Resistance
Apparatus with non-constant are called non-ohmic. The inter-
esting question is why so many materials are ohmic.
DC power supply (Thornton) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group Since we know that electrons and nuclei are bound
digital multimeters (Fluke and HP) . . . . . . . 2/group together to form atoms, it would be more reasonable
resistors, various values to expect that small voltages, creating small electric
unknown electrical components fields, would be unable to break the electrons and
electrode paste nuclei away from each other, and no current would
alligator clips flow at all — only with fairly large voltages should
spare fuses for multimeters — Let students replace the atoms be split up, allowing current to flow. Thus
fuses themselves. we would expect R to be infinite for small voltages,
and small for large voltages, which would not be
ohmic behavior. It is only within the last 50 years
that a good explanation has been achieved for the
Goals strange observation that nearly all solids and liquids
Measure curves of voltage versus current for are ohmic.
three objects: your body and two unknown
electrical components.
Terminology, Schematics, and Re-
Determine whether they are ohmic, and if so,
determine their resistances.
sistor Color Codes
The word “resistor” usually implies a specific type
of electrical component, which is a piece of ohmic
Introduction material with its shape and composition chosen to
give a desired value of R. Any piece of an ohmic
Your nervous system depends on electrical currents,
substance, however, has a constant value of R, and
and every day you use many devices based on elec-
therefore in some sense constitutes a “resistor.” The
trical currents without even thinking about it. De-
wires in a circuit have electrical resistance, but the
spite its ordinariness, the phenomenon of electric
resistance is usually negligible (a small fraction of an
currents passing through liquids (e.g., cellular flu-
Ohm for several centimeters of wire).
ids) and solids (e.g., copper wires) is a subtle one.
For example, we now know that atoms are composed The usual symbol for a resistor in an electrical schematic
of smaller, subatomic particles called electrons and is this , but some recent schematics use
nuclei, and that the electrons and nuclei are elec- this . The symbol represents a fixed
trically charged, i.e., matter is electrical. Thus, we
now have a picture of these electrically charged par-
ticles sitting around in matter, ready to create an source of voltage such as a battery, while repre-
electric current by moving in response to an exter- sents an adjustable voltage source, such as the power
nally applied voltage. Electricity had been used for supply you will use in this lab.
practical purposes for a hundred years, however, be-
In a schematic, the lengths and shapes of the lines
fore the electrical nature of matter was proven at the
representing wires are completely irrelevant, and are
turn of the 20th century.
usually unrelated to the physical lengths and shapes
Another subtle issue involves Ohm’s law, of the wires. The physical behavior of the circuit
does not depend on the lengths of the wires (un-
∆V
I= , less the length is so great that the resistance of the
R wire becomes non-negligible), and the schematic is
where ∆V is the voltage difference applied across an not meant to give any information other than that
object (e.g., a wire), and I is the current that flows needed to understand the circuit’s behavior. All that
in response. A piece of copper wire, for instance, really matters is what is connected to what.
has a constant value of R over a wide range of volt- For instance, the schematics (a) and (b) above are
ages. Such materials are called ohmic. Materials
Observations
A Unknown component A
Set up the circuit shown above with unknown com-
ponent A. Most of your equipment accepts the ba-
Setup nana plugs that your cables have on each end, but
to connect to RU and RK you need to stick alligator
Obtain your two unknowns from your instructor.
clips on the banana plugs. See Appendix 7 for in-
Group 1 will use unknowns 1A and 1B, group 2 will
formation about how to set up and use the two mul-
use 2A and 2B, and so on.
timeters. Do not use the pointy probes that come
Here is a simplified version of the basic circuit you with the multimeters, because there is no convenient
will use for your measurements of I as a function of way to attach them to the circuit — just use the ba-
∆V . Although I’ve used the symbol for a resistor, nana plug cables. Note when you need three wires to
79
come together at one point, you can plug a banana Now interpret the following color code:
plug into the back of another banana plug.
green orange yellow silver =?
Measure I as a function of ∆V . Make sure to take
P2 Fit a line to the following sample data and use
measurements for both positive and negative volt-
the slope to extract the resistance (see Appendix 4).
ages.
Often when we do this lab, it’s the first time in sev-
eral months that the meters have been used. The
small hand-held meters have a battery, which may
be dead. Check the battery icon on the LCD screen.
B Unknown component B
Repeat for unknown component B.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If P5 Explain why the following statements about
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to the resistor RK are incorrect:
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab. a) “You have to make RK small compared to RU , so
it won’t affect things too much.”
P1 Check that you understand the interpretations
of the following color-coded resistor labels: b) “RK doesn’t affect the measurement of RU , be-
cause the meters just measure the total amount the
blue gray orange silver = 68 kΩ ± 10% power supply is putting out.”
blue gray orange gold = 68 kΩ ± 5%
blue gray red silver = 6.8 kΩ ± 10% c) “RK doesn’t affect the measurement of RU , be-
black brown blue silver = 1 MΩ ± 10% cause the current and voltage only go through RK
after they’ve already gone through RU .”
81
27 The Loop and Junction Rules
Apparatus sistors. Passing through the first resistor, our sub-
atomic protagonist passes through a voltage differ-
DC power supply (Thornton) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group ence of ∆V1 , so its potential energy changes by −e∆V1 .
multimeter (Fluke) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group To use a human analogy, this would be like going up
resistors a hill of a certain height and gaining some gravi-
tational potential energy. Continuing on, it passes
through more voltage differences, −e∆V2 , −e∆V3 ,
and so on. Finally, in a moment of religious tran-
Goal scendence, the electron realizes that life is one big
Test the loop and junction rules in two electrical circuit — you always end up coming back where you
circuits. started from. If it passed through N resistors be-
fore getting back to its starting point, then the total
change in its potential energy was
Introduction
−e (∆V1 + . . . + ∆VN ) .
If you ask physicists what are the most fundamen-
tally important principles of their science, almost all
But just as there is no such thing as a round-trip
of them will start talking to you about conserva-
hike that is all downhill, it is not possible for the
tion laws. A conservation law is a statement that a
electron to have any net change in potential energy
certain measurable quantity cannot be changed. A
after passing through this loop — if so, we would
conservation law that is easy to understand is the
have created some energy out of nothing. Since the
conservation of mass. No matter what you do, you
total change in the electron’s potential energy must
cannot create or destroy mass.
be zero, it must be true that ∆V1 + . . . + ∆VN = 0.
The two conservation laws with which we will be This is the loop rule:
concerned in this lab are conservation of energy and
The sum of the voltage differences around any closed
conservation of charge. Energy is related to voltage,
loop in a circuit must equal zero.
because voltage is defined as V = P E/q. Charge
is related to current, because current is defined as When you are hiking, there is an important distinc-
I = ∆q/∆t. tion between uphill and downhill, which depends en-
tirely on which direction you happen to be traveling
Conservation of charge has an important consequence
on the trail. Similarly, it is important when apply-
for electrical circuits:
ing the loop rule to be consistent about the signs
When two or more wires come together at a point in you give to the voltage differences, say positive if
a DC circuit, the total current entering that point the electron sees an increase in voltage and negative
equals the total current leaving it. if it sees a decrease along its direction of motion.
Such a coming-together of wires in a circuit is called
a junction. If the current leaving a junction was,
say, greater than the current entering, then the junc-
Observations
tion would have to be creating electric charge out A The junction rule
of nowhere. (Of course, charge could have been
Construct a circuit like the one in the figure, using
stored up at that point and released later, but then
the Thornton power supply as your voltage source.
it wouldn’t be a DC circuit — the flow of current
To make things more interesting, don’t use equal
would change over time as the stored charge was
resistors. Use nice big resistors (say 100 kΩ to 1
used up.)
MΩ) — this will ensure that you don’t burn up the
Conservation of energy can also be applied to an resistors, and that the multimeter’s small internal
electrical circuit. The charge carriers are typically resistance when used as an ammeter is negligible in
electrons in copper wires, and an electron has a po- comparison. Insert your multimeter in the circuit to
tential energy equal to −eV . Suppose the electron measure all three currents that you need in order to
sets off on a journey through a circuit made of re- test the junction rule.
Self-Check
Do the analysis in lab.
83
28 Electric Fields
Apparatus voltages. Every voltmeter has two probes, and the
meter tells you the difference in voltage between the
board and U-shaped probe ruler two places at which you connect them. Two points
DC power supply (Thornton) have a nonzero voltage difference between them if
multimeter it takes work (either positive or negative) to move
scissors a charge from one place to another. If there is a
stencils for drawing electrode shapes on paper voltage difference between two points in a conduct-
ing substance, charges will move between them just
like water will flow if there is a difference in levels.
The charge will always flow in the direction of lower
Goals potential energy (just like water flows downhill).
To be better able to visualize electric fields and All of this can be visualized most easily in terms
understand their meaning. of maps of constant-voltage curves (also known as
equipotentials); you may be familiar with topograph-
To examine the electric fields around certain ical maps, which are very similar. On a topograph-
charge distributions. ical map, curves are drawn to connect points hav-
ing the same height above sea level. For instance, a
cone-shaped volcano would be represented by con-
Introduction centric circles. The outermost circle might connect
all the points at an altitude of 500 m, and inside it
By definition, the electric field, E, at a particular you might have concentric circles showing higher lev-
point equals the force on a test charge at that point els such as 600, 700, 800, and 900 m. Now imagine
divided by the amount of charge, E = F/q. We can a similar representation of the voltage surrounding
plot the electric field around any charge distribution an isolated point charge. There is no “sea level”
by placing a test charge at different locations and here, so we might just imagine connecting one probe
making note of the direction and magnitude of the of the voltmeter to a point within the region to
force on it. The direction of the electric field at be mapped, and the other probe to a fixed refer-
any point P is the same as the direction of the force ence point very far away. The outermost circle on
on a positive test charge at P. The result would be your map might connect all the points having a volt-
a page covered with arrows of various lengths and age of 0.3 V relative to the distant reference point,
directions, known as a “sea of arrows” diagram.. and within that would lie a 0.4-V circle, a 0.5-V
In practice, Radio Shack does not sell equipment for circle, and so on. These curves are referred to as
preparing a known test charge and measuring the constant-voltage curves, because they connect points
force on it, so there is no easy way to measure elec- of equal voltage. In this lab, you are going to map
tric fields. What really is practical to measure at any out constant-voltage curves, but not just for an iso-
given point is the voltage, V , defined as the elec- lated point charge, which is just a simple example
trical energy (potential energy) that a test charge like the idealized example of a conical volcano.
would have at that point, divided by the amount You could move a charge along a constant-voltage
of charge (E/Q). This quantity would have units curve in either direction without doing any work,
of J/C (Joules per Coulomb), but for convenience because you are not moving it to a place of higher
we normally abbreviate this combination of units as potential energy. If you do not do any work when
volts. Just as many mechanical phenomena can be moving along a constant-voltage curve, there must
described using either the language of force or the not be a component of electric force along the surface
language of energy, it may be equally useful to de- (or you would be doing work). A metal wire is a
scribe electrical phenomena either by their electric constant-voltage curve. We know that electrons in a
fields or by the voltages involved. metal are free to move. If there were a force along
Since it is only ever the difference in potential en- the wire, electrons would move because of it. In fact
ergy (interaction energy) between two points that the electrons would move until they were distributed
can be defined unambiguously, the same is true for in such a way that there is no longer any force on
85
multimeter, connect the multimeter so that you can Prelab
measure the voltage difference across the terminals
of the voltage source. Adjust the voltage source to The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
give 8 volts. you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Looking at a plot of constant-voltage curves,
how could you tell where the strongest electric fields
would be? (Don’t just say that the field is strongest
when you’re close to “the charge,” because you may
have a complex charge distribution, and we don’t
have any way to see or measure the charge distribu-
tion.)
P2 What would the constant-voltage curves look
like in a region of uniform electric field (i.e., one in
which the E vectors are all the same strength, and
all in the same direction)?
Self-Check
Calculate at least one numerical electric field value
If you press down on the board, you can slip the pa-
to make sure you understand how to do it.
per between the board and the four buttons you see
at the corners of the board. Tape the paper to your You have probably found some constant-voltage curves
board, because the buttons aren’t very dependable. that form closed loops. Do the electric field patterns
There are plastic stencils in some of the envelopes, ever seem to close back on themselves? Make sure
and you can use these to draw the electrodes accu- you understand why or why not.
rately onto your paper so you know where they are.
Make sure the people in your group all have a copy
The photo, for example, shows pattern 3 traced onto
of each pattern.
the paper.
Now put the U-probe in place so that the top is
above the equipotential board and the bottom of it Analysis
is below the board. You will first be looking for
A. After you have completed the plots for two pat-
places on the pattern board where the voltage is one
terns, you should try to draw in electric field vectors.
volt — look for places where the meter reads 1.0 and
You will then have two different representations of
mark them through the hole on the top of your U-
the field superimposed on one another. Remember
probe with a pencil or pen. You should find a whole
that electric field vectors are always perpendicular
bunch of places there the voltage equals one volt,
to constant-voltage curves. The electric field lines
so that you can draw a nice constant-voltage curve
point from high voltage to low voltage, just as the
connecting them. (If the line goes very far or curves
force on a rolling ball points downhill.
strangely, you may have to do more.) You can then
repeat the procedure for 2 V, 3 V, and so on. Label B. Select at least five places on each plot and deter-
each constant-voltage curve. Once you’ve finished mine the electric field strength (E) at each of them.
tracing the equipotentials, everyone in your group Make sure to include the two points that appear to
will need one copy of each of the two patterns you have the strongest and weakest fields.
do, so you will need to photocopy them or simply
C. For the parallel-plate capacitor, in what region
trace them by hand.
was the electric field relatively uniform?
Repeat this procedure with another pattern. Groups
1 and 4 should do patterns 1 and 2; groups 2 and 5
patterns 1 and 3; groups 3, 6, and 7 patterns 1 and
4.
Goal
Find how the magnetic field of a bar magnet changes
with distance along one of the magnet’s lines of sym-
metry.
point straight up or down.
Introduction Line up your magnet so it is pointing east-west.
Choose one of the two symmetry axes of your mag-
A Qualitative Mapping of the Magnet’s Field net, and measure the deflection of the compass at
You can use a compass to map out part of the mag- two points along that axis, as shown in the second
netic field of a bar magnet. The compass is affected figure, at the end of the lab. As part of your prelab,
by both the earth’s field and the bar magnet’s field, you will use vector addition to find an equation for
and points in the direction of their vector sum, but if Bm /Be , the magnet’s field in units of the Earth’s, in
you put the compass within a few cm of the bar mag- terms of the deflection angle θ. For your first point,
net, you’re seeing mostly its field, not the earth’s. find the distance r at which the deflection is 70 de-
Investigate the bar magnet’s field, and sketch it in grees; this angle is chosen because it’s about as big
your lab notebook. as it can be without giving very poor relative preci-
sion in the determination of the magnetic field. For
B Variation of Field With Distance: Deflection your second data-point, use twice that distance. By
of a Magnetic Compass what factor does the field decrease when you double
You can infer the strength of the bar magnet’s field r?
at a given point by putting the compass there and Note that the measurements are very sensitive to the
seeing how much it is deflected. relative position and orientation of the bar magnet
The task can be simplified quite a bit if you restrict and compass. You can position them accurately by
yourself to measuring the magnetic field at points laying them both on top of a piece of graph paper,
along one of the magnet’s two lines of symmetry, but before you set all that up, get a preliminary
shown in the figure. estimate of the distances you’ll be using, because
otherwise you can end up wasting your time.
If the magnet is flipped across the vertical axis, the
north and south poles remain just where they were, Based on your two data-points, form a hypothesis
and the field is unchanged. That means the entire about the variation of the magnet’s field with dis-
magnetic field is also unchanged, and the field at a tance according to a power law B ∝ rp .
point such as point b, along the line of symmetry,
C Variation of Field With Distance: Hall Effect
must therefore point straight up.
Magnetometer
If the magnet is flipped across the horizontal axis, In this part of the lab, you will test your hypothesis
then the north and south poles are swapped, and the about the power law relationship B ∝ rp ; you will
field everywhere has to reverse its direction. Thus, find out whether the field really does obey such a
the field at points along this axis, e.g., point a, must law, and if it does, you will determine p accurately.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 In part B, suppose that when the compass is
11.0 cm from the magnet, it is 45 degrees away from
north. What is the strength of the bar magnet’s field
at this location in space, in units of the Earth’s field?
89
Part B, measuring the variation of the bar magnet’s field with respect to distance
Introduction
This lab is designed to be used along with section
10.3 of Simple Nature, which is about the superpo-
sition (i.e., addition) of fields. That section is about
electric fields, and the basic principle is that if we
have two sets of sources (charges) that would indi-
vidually create fields E1 and E2 , then their combined
field is the vector sum E1 + E2 . Static electric fields,
however, are difficult to control and measure. Mag-
netic fields are much easier to work with, and the If the magnet is flipped across the vertical axis, the
same vector addition principle applies to them. In north and south poles remain just where they were,
this lab, you’ll expose a magnetic compass to the and the field is unchanged. That means the entire
superposed magnetic fields of the earth and a bar magnetic field is also unchanged, and the field at a
magnet. point such as point b, along the line of symmetry,
A Qualitative Mapping of the Dipole’s Field must therefore point straight up.
You can use a compass to map out part of the mag- If the magnet is flipped across the horizontal axis,
netic field of a bar magnet. It turns out that the then the north and south poles are swapped, and the
bar magnet is the magnetic equivalent of an electric field everywhere has to reverse its direction. Thus,
dipole. The compass is affected by both the earth’s the field at points along this axis, e.g., point a, must
field and the bar magnet’s field, and points in the point straight up or down.
direction of their vector sum, but if you put the com- Line up your magnet so it is pointing east-west.
pass within a few cm of the bar magnet, you’re seeing Choose one of the two symmetry axes of your mag-
mostly its field, not the earth’s. Investigate the bar net, and measure the deflection of the compass at
magnet’s field, and sketch it in your lab notebook. two points along that axis, as shown in the second
You should see that it looks like the field a dipole. figure, at the end of the lab. As part of your prelab,
you will use vector addition to find an equation for
B Variation of Field With Distance: Deflection
Bm /Be , the magnet’s field in units of the Earth’s, in
of a Magnetic Compass
terms of the deflection angle θ. For your first point,
Magnetic fields are actually measured in units of
1 Actually we’re defining its horizontal component to be
Tesla (T), but for the purposes of this part of the lab,
one unit — the compass can’t respond to vertical fields. The
we’ll just measure the fields in units of the earth’s dip angle of the magnetic field in Fullerton is fairly steep.
93
opposite orientations of the magnet, which should
equal twice the magnet’s field. The Earth’s field can-
cels out. This means that you need a total of four
different measurements at each point in space, cover-
ing all four possible combinations of the orientation
of the probe along x or y with both orientations of
the magnet.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Suppose that when the compass is 11.0 cm from
the magnet, it is 45 degrees away from north. What
is the strength of the bar magnet’s field at this loca-
tion in space, in units of the Earth’s field?
P2 Find Bm /Be in terms of the deflection angle θ.
As a special case, you should be able to recover your
answer to P1.
Analysis
Determine the magnetic field of the bar magnet as
a function of distance. No error analysis is required.
Look for a power-law relationship using the log-log
graphing technique described in appendix 5. Does
the power law hold for all the distances you inves-
tigated, or only at large distances? Compare this
power law result with the result for the variation of
an electric dipole’s field with distance.
95
31 The Earth’s Magnetic Field (Physics 222)
Apparatus thread, and observe the period of its oscillations in
the Earth’s magnetic field. The idea is that if the
digital multimeter Earth’s field is stronger, there is a stronger torque
neodymium magnet (6 discs stuck together) trying to align the magnet north-south, and the fre-
magnetic compass quency of the oscillations will therefore be higher.
resistors By measuring the frequency of the oscillations, we
decade resistor boxes can work backward and infer the strength of the hor-
rulers izontal component of the Earth’s field.
thread
1-m aluminum rod
stopwatch
photogate
laser
aluminum rods, and clamps
D cell batteries and holders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/group
Helmholtz coils (e/m apparatus)
high-precision Helmholtz coil (one set)
Hall effect magnetic field probes
LabPro interfaces, DC power supplies, and USB ca-
bles
Goal
Determine the horizontal component of the Earth’s
magnetic field in Fullerton, to high precision.
97
for lab 33, and they have a big, extremely expensive field. To correct for this, measure the period of the
vacuum tube stuck inside them for that purpose. magnet’s oscillation inside and outside. If they are
With your instructor’s help, very carefully detach significantly different, correct according to B1 /B2 =
2
the base from the tube. Then unscrew the yokes (T2 /Tp1 ) ; this follows from adapting the equation
that hold the tube in place, and put the tube out of ω = k/m for simple harmonic motion to the case
the way in the stockroom, with cusioning to make of rotation, with the torque τ = m × B playing the
sure it doesn’t get broken. role of the restoring force.
You need precisely controlled, steady currents for (Note to myself: Some of my own further notes about
this lab, and DC power supplies aren’t stable enough, the lab are embedded in comments in the LaTeX
so you’ll use batteries instead. To control the cur- source code for the lab manual.)
rent precisely, you’ll use the decade resistor boxes,
which are variable resistors that let you dial up any
decimal number of ohms that you want. Prelab
We want to keep all magnetic materials far away The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
from the magnet. Clamp the 1-m aluminum rod to you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
the vertical steel post, and hang the magnet from it, ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
far from the post. you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
There are several possible methods for measuring
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
the period of the oscillations, and one of my goals
for spring 2009 is to have my students test drive P1 For an electromagnet consisting of a single cir-
them. One is to use a stopwatch to time, say, 20 cular loop of wire of radius b, the field at a point on
oscillations. A second method would be to use the its axis, at a distance z from the plane of the loop,
magnetic field probe and graph the field as a function is given by
of time. A third method would be to use a photo-
gate, in pendulum mode as described in appendix 2πkIb2
B= .
6. The photogates have steel screws in them, so you c2 (b2 + z 2 )3/2
can’t use them in the ordinary way, with the mag-
net swinging through the infrared beam that goes Starting from this equation, derive an equation for
across the center of the gate. Instead, you can open the magnetic field at the center of a pair of Helmholtz
the shutter on the inside of the photogate to change coils, in terms of h, b, and N . Find B/I for both
it into a mode where it senses light from the beam of the high-precision coils and the low-precision ones,
an external laser. The photogate can then be phys- based on the given values of h, b, and N . (The B/I
ically far away from the magnet so that the screws for the low-precision ones is useful as a check, but has
don’t affect the measurement. A possible problem poor precision, which is why you’ll calibrate against
with the photogate method is that it requires the the high-precision ones.)
amplitude of the oscillations to be big enough so P2 Estimate the current that will be required in
that the magnet blocks and unblocks the photogate, the low-precision coils in order to cancel the Earth’s
but with oscillations that big, the dependence of the field, about 2 × 10−5 T.
period on amplitude could be a significant source
of error unless the amplitude was very accurately
controlled. This problem could possibly be solved Analysis
by attaching a cardboard vane to the magnet, and
that would also get rid of the safety problem caused Find the earth’s magnetic field, with error bars.
by reflecting the laser beam from the shiny magnet.
Of these methods, it’s possible that one might be
the most convenient for rough initial measurements,
while another would work best for the final, accurate
measurement.
When you’re done with all this, what you’ve actually
measured is the magnetic field inside the building.
Many buildings have magnetic building materials, so
the fields inside them are different from the Earth’s
101
33 The Charge to Mass Ratio of the Electron
Apparatus
vacuum tube with Helmholtz
coils (Leybold ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Cenco 33034 HV supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
12-V DC power supplies (Thornton) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
multimeters (Fluke or HP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
compass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
banana-plug cables
Goal
Measure the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron.
of the magnetic field on the electrons is
F = qvB , (1)
Introduction
Why should you believe electrons exist? By the turn directed towards the center of the circle. Their ac-
of the twentieth century, not all scientists believed celeration is
in the literal reality of atoms, and few could imag-
ine smaller objects from which the atoms themselves v2
were constructed. Over two thousand years had a= , (2)
r
elapsed since the Greeks first speculated that atoms
existed based on philosophical arguments without so using F = ma, we can write
experimental evidence. During the Middle Ages in
Europe, “atomism” had been considered highly sus- mv 2
qvB = . (3)
pect, and possibly heretical. Finally by the Vic- r
torian era, enough evidence had accumulated from
If the initial velocity of the electrons is provided by
chemical experiments to make a persuasive case for
accelerating them through a voltage difference V ,
atoms, but subatomic particles were not even dis-
they have a kinetic energy equal to qV , so
cussed.
If it had taken two millennia to settle the question 1
mv 2 = qV . (4)
of atoms, it is remarkable that another, subatomic 2
level of structure was brought to light over a period
From equations 3 and 4, you can determine q/m.
of only about five years, from 1895 to 1900. Most
Note that since the force of a magnetic field on a
of the crucial work was carried out in a series of
moving charged particle is always perpendicular to
experiments by J.J. Thomson, who is therefore often
the direction of the particle’s motion, the magnetic
considered the discoverer of the electron.
field can never do any work on it, and the particle’s
In this lab, you will carry out a variation on a crucial KE and speed are therefore constant.
experiment by Thomson, in which he measured the
You will be able to see where the electrons are going,
ratio of the charge of the electron to its mass, q/m.
because the vacuum tube is filled with a hydrogen
The basic idea is to observe a beam of electrons in
gas at a low pressure. Most electrons travel large
a region of space where there is an approximately
distances through the gas without ever colliding with
uniform magnetic field, B. The electrons are emitted
a hydrogen atom, but a few do collide, and the atoms
perpendicular to the field, and, it turns out, travel
then give off blue light, which you can see. Although
in a circle in a plane perpendicular to it. The force
I will loosely refer to “seeing the beam,” you are
really seeing the light from the collisions, not the
103
equal. The results are as follows: coils. Devise a plan to eliminate, correct for, or at
least estimate the effect of the Earth’s magnetic field
serial number k (cm)
on your final q/m value.
98-16 0.0
99-08 -0.6 P5 Of the three circuits involved in this experi-
99-10 -0.2 ment, which ones need to be hooked up with the
99-17 +0.2 right polarity, and for which ones is the polarity ir-
99-56 +0.3 relevant?
If your apparatus is one that hasn’t already had its k P6 What would you infer if you found the beam
determined, then you should do the necessary mea- of electrons formed a helix rather than a circle?
surements to calibrate it.
Analysis
Prelab
Determine q/m, with error bars.
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do- Answer the following questions:
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If Q1. Thomson started to become convinced during
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to his experiments that the “cathode rays” observed
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise coming from the cathodes of vacuum tubes were
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab. building blocks of atoms — what we now call elec-
The week before you are to do the lab, briefly famil- trons. He then carried out observations with cath-
iarize yourself visually with the apparatus. odes made of a variety of metals, and found that
q/m was the same in every case. How would that
Do the high voltage safety checklist, Appendix 8, observation serve to test his hypothesis?
tear it out, and turn it in at the beginning of lab. If
you don’t understand something, don’t initial that Q2. Why is it not possible to determine q and m
point, and ask your instructor for clarification before themselves, rather than just their ratio, by observing
you start the lab. electrons’ motion in electric or magnetic fields?
P1 Derive an equation for q/m in terms of V , r Q3. Thomson found that the q/m of an electron
and B. was thousands of times larger than that of ions in
electrolysis. Would this imply that the electrons had
P2 For an electromagnet consisting of a single cir- more charge? Less mass? Would there be no way to
cular loop of wire of radius b, the field at a point on tell? Explain.
its axis, at a distance z from the plane of the loop,
is given by
2πkIb2
B= .
c2 (b2+ z 2 )3/2
Starting from this equation, derive an equation for
the magnetic field at the center of a pair of Helmholtz
coils. Let the number of turns in each coil be N (in
our case, N = 130), let their radius be b, and let the
distance between them be h. (In the actual experi-
ment, the electrons are never exactly on the axis of
the Helmholtz coils. In practice, the equation you
will derive is sufficiently accurate as an approxima-
tion to the actual field experienced by the electrons.)
If you have trouble with this derivation, see your in-
structor in his/her office hours.
P3 Find the currently accepted value of q/m for
the electron.
P4 The electrons will be affected by the Earth’s
magnetic field, as well as the (larger) field of the
Analysis
Plot y versus x on a piece of graph paper. Let’s
assume that the energy in a field depends on the
field’s strength raised to some power p. Conservation
of energy then gives
|x|p + |y|p = 1 .
Use your graph to determine p, and interpret your
result.
107
35 RC Circuits
Apparatus
oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
Pasco PI-9587C function generator
1/group unknown capacitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
known capacitors, 0.05 µF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
resistors of various values
Goals
Observe the exponential curve of a discharging
capacitor.
Determine the capacitance of an unknown ca-
pacitor.
Introduction
God bless the struggling high school math teacher,
but some of them seem to have a talent for mak-
ing interesting and useful ideas seem dull and use-
less. On certain topics such as the exponential func-
tion, ex, the percentage of students who figure out
from their teacher’s explanation what it really means
and why they should care approaches zero. That’s
a shame, because there are so many cases where it’s
useful. The graphs show just a few of the important
situations in which this function shows up.
The credit card example is of the form
y = aet/k ,
y = ae−t/k ,
109
the RC time constant, which is just a property of
the resistor and the capacitor.
If you think you have a working setup, observe the
effect of temporarily placing a second capacitor in
parallel with the first capacitor. If your setup is
working, the exponential decay on the scope should
become more gradual because you have increased
RC. If you don’t see any effect, it probably means
you’re measuring behavior coming from the internal
R and C of the function generator and the scope.
clicked into place, not in the range where it moves Use the scope to determine the RC time constant,
freely — otherwise the times on the scope are not and check that it is correct. Rather than reading
calibrated. times and voltages by eye from the scope’s x-y grid,
you can make the scope give you a measuring cur-
A Preliminary observations sor. Do Cursor>Type>Time, and Source>CH 1 .
Pick a resistor and capacitor with a combined RC Use the top left knob to move the cursor to different
time constant of ∼ 1 ms. Make sure the resistor is times.
at least ∼ 10kΩ, so that the internal resistance of B Unknown capacitor
the function generator is negligible compared to the
resistance you supply. Build a similar circuit using your unknown capacitor
plus a known resistor. Use the unknown capacitor
Note that the capacitance values printed on the sides with the same number as your group number. Take
of capacitors often violate the normal SI conventions the data you will need in order to determine the RC
about prefixes. If just a number is given on the ca- time constant, and thus the unknown capacitance.
pacitor with no units, the implied units are micro-
farads, mF. Units of nF are avoided by the manufac- As a check on your result, obtain a known capacitor
turers in favor of fractional microfarads, e.g., instead with a value similar to the one you have determined
of 1 nF, they would use “0.001,” meaning 0.001 µF. for your unknown, and see if you get nearly the same
For picofarads, a capital P is used, “PF,” instead of curve on the scope if you replace the unknown ca-
the standard SI “pF.” pacitor with the new one.
113
also find a 6 db/octave slope in the limit of low fre-
quencies — here the impedance is dominated by the
P capacitor, but the idea is similar. (More complex fil-
db = 10 log10
Pmax tering circuits can achieve roll-offs more drastic than
V 6 db/octave.)
= 20 log10 ,
Vmax
ΓE = −dΦB /dt
Observations
Introduction
A Qualitative Observations
Physicists hate complication, and when physicist Mi-
To observe Faraday’s law in action you will first need
chael Faraday was first learning physics in the early
to produce a varying magnetic field. You can do this
19th century, an embarrassingly complex aspect of
by using a function generator to produce a current
the science was the multiplicity of types of forces.
in a solenoid that that varies like a sine wave as a
Friction, normal forces, gravity, electric forces, mag-
function of time. The solenoid’s magnetic field will
netic forces, surface tension — the list went on and
thus also vary sinusoidally.
on. Today, 200 years later, ask a physicist to enu-
merate the fundamental forces of nature and the The emf in Faraday’s law can be observed around a
most likely response will be “four: gravity, electro- loop of wire positioned inside or close to the solenoid.
magnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak To make the emf larger and easier to see on an os-
nuclear force.” Part of the simplification came from cilloscope, you will use 5-10 loops, which multiplies
the study of matter at the atomic level, which showed the flux by that number of loops.
that apparently unrelated forces such as friction, nor-
The only remaining complication is that the rate of
mal forces, and surface tension were all manifesta-
change of the magnetic flux, dΦB /dt, is determined
tions of electrical forces among atoms. The other
by the rate of change of the magnetic field, which
big simplification came from Faraday’s experimental
relates to the rate of change of the current through
work showing that electric and magnetic forces were
the solenoid, dI/dt. The oscilloscope, however, mea-
intimately related in previously unexpected ways, so
sures voltage, not current. You might think that
intimately related in fact that we now refer to the
you could simply observe the voltage being supplied
two sets of force-phenomena under a single term,
to the solenoid and divide by the solenoid’s 62-ohm
“electromagnetism.”
resistance to find the current through the solenoid.
Even before Faraday, Oersted had shown that there This will not work, however, because Faraday’s law
was at least some relationship between electric and produces not only an emf in the loops of wire but also
magnetic forces. An electrical current creates a mag- an emf in the solenoid that produced the magnetic
netic field, and magnetic fields exert forces on an field in the first place. The current in the solenoid is
electrical current. In other words, electric forces being driven not just by the emf from the function
are forces of charges acting on charges, and mag- generator but also by this “self-induced” emf. Even
netic forces are forces of moving charges on moving though the solenoid is just a long piece of wire, it
Wind the 2-m wire into circular loops small enough C Quantitative Observations
to fit inside the solenoid, and hook it up to the other This part of the lab is a quantitative test of Fara-
channel of the scope. day’s law. Going back to the setup for part A, mea-
sure the amplitude (peak-to-peak height) of the volt-
age across the power resistor. Choose a position
for the loops of wire that you think will make it
as easy as possible to calculate dΦB /dt accurately
based on knowledge of the variation of the current
in the solenoid as a function of time. Put the loops
in that position, and measure the amplitude of the
induced emf. Repeat these measurements with a fre-
quency that is different by a factor of two.
Self-Check
Before leaving, analyze your results from part C and
make sure you get reasonable agreement with Fara-
day’s law.
As always, you need to watch out for ground loops.
The output of the function generator has one of its
terminals grounded, so that ground and the grounded Analysis
side of the scope’s input have to be at the same place
in the circuit. Describe your observations in parts A and B and
interpret them in terms of Faraday’s law.
The signals tend to be fairly noise. You can clean
them up a little by having the scope average over a Compare your observations in part C quantitatively
with Faraday’s law. The solenoid isn’t very long, so
series of traces. To turn on averaging, do Acquire>Average>128.
To turn it back off, press Sample. the approximate expression for the interior field of a
long solenoid isn’t very accurate here. To correct for
First try putting the loops at the mouth of the solenoid, that, multiply the expression for the field by (cos β +
and observe the emf induced in them. Observe what cos γ)/2, which you derived in homework problem
happens when you flip the loops over. You will ob- 11-30 in Simple Nature, where β and γ are angles
serve that the two sine waves on the scope are out of between the axis and the lines connecting the point
phase with each other. Sketch the phase relationship of interest to the edges of the solenoid’s mouths.
in your notebook, and make sure you understand in
terms of Faraday’s law why it is the way it is, i.e.,
why the induced emf has the greatest value at a cer- Prelab
tain point, why it is zero at a certain point, etc.
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
Observe the induced emf at with the loops at several
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
other positions such as those shown in the figure.
117
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Plan what raw data you’ll need to collect for
part C, and figure out the equation you’ll use to
test whether your observations are consistent with
Faraday’s law.
G Dependence on distance
How does the signal picked up by your generator
change with distance?
Try to explain what you have observed, and discuss
your interpretations with your instructor.
Lenz’s Law
It can be tricky to make the connection between the
Lenz’s law describes how the clockwise or counter-
polarity of the signal on the screen of the oscilloscope
clockwise direction of the induced electric field’s whirlpool
and the direction of the electric field pattern. The
pattern relates to the changing magnetic field. The
figure shows an example of how to interpret a posi-
main result of this lab is a determination of how
tive pulse: the current must have flowed through the
Lenz’s law works. To focus your reasoning, here are
scope from the center conductor of the coax cable to
four possible forms for Lenz’s law:
its outer conductor (marked GND on the coax-to-
1. The electric field forms a pattern that is clockwise banana converter).
when viewed along the direction of the B vector of
the changing magnetic field.
2. The electric field forms a pattern that is counter-
Prelab
clockwise when viewed along the direction of the B The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
vector of the changing magnetic field. you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
3. The electric field forms a pattern that is clockwise ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
when viewed along the direction of the ∆B vector of you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
the changing magnetic field. my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
4. The electric field forms a pattern that is coun-
P1 The time-scale for all the signals is determined
121
by the fact that you’re wiggling and waving the mag-
net by hand, so what’s a reasonable order of magni-
tude to choose for the time base on the oscilloscope?
Self-Check
Determine which version of Lenz’s law is correct.
Setup
We’ll start by observing the impedance of a capaci-
tor. Ideally, what we want is this:
D Impedances in series
Put the capacitor and inductor in series, and collect
the data you’ll need in order to determine their com-
bined impedance at several frequencies ranging from
100 to 1000 Hz.
Analysis
Use your data from part C to determine an experi-
mental value of the coil’s inductance, and compare
with the theoretical result based on your measure-
ments in part B.
Graph the theoretical and experimental impedance
of the series combination in part D, overlaying them
on the same graph. Show theory as a curve and ex-
periment as discrete data-points. Do the same kind
of graph for the parallel combination.
125
40 Refraction and Images
Apparatus and is slowed down. The other side of the beam,
however, gets to travel in air, at its faster speed, for
rectangular block of plastic (20x10x5 cm, longer, because it enters the water later — by the
from blackboard optics kit), or plastic box with wa- time it enters the water, the other side of the beam
ter in it has been limping along through the water for a little
laser while, and has not gotten as far. The wavefront is
spiral plastic tube and fiber optic cable for demon- therefore twisted around a little, in the same way
strating total internal reflection that a marching band turns by having the people on
ruler one side take smaller steps.
protractor
butcher paper
Goals
Observe the phenomena of refraction and total
internal reflection.
Without the phenomenon of refraction, the lens of where the index i refers to the incident light and in-
your eye could not focus light on your retina, and you cident medium, and t refers to the transmitted light
would not be able to see. Refraction is the bending of and the transmitting medium. Note that the an-
rays of light that occurs when they pass through the gles are defined with respect to the normal, i.e., the
boundary between two media in which the speed of imaginary line perpendicular to the boundary.
light is different. Light entering your eye passes from Also, not all of the light is transmitted. Some is re-
air, in which the speed of light is 3.0 × 108 m/s, into flected — the amount depends on the angles. In fact,
the watery tissues of your eye, in which it is about for certain values of ni , nt , and θi , there is no value
2.2 × 108 m/s. Since it is inconvenient to write or of θt that will obey Snell’s law (sin θt would have
say the speed of light in a particular medium, we to be greater than one). In such a situation, 100%
usually speak in terms of the index of refraction, n, of the light must be reflected. This phenomenon is
defined by known as total internal reflection. The word inter-
n = c/v, nal is used because the phenomenon only occurs for
ni > nt . If one medium is air and the other is plastic
where c is the speed of light in a vacuum, and v is or glass, then this can only happen when the incident
the speed of light in the medium in question. Thus, light is in the plastic or glass, i.e., the light is try-
vacuum has n = 1 by definition. Air, which is not ing to escape but can’t. Total internal reflection is
very dense, does not slow light down very much, so used to good advantage in fiber-optic cables used to
it has an index of refraction very close to 1. Water transmit long-distance phone calls or data on the in-
has an index of refraction of about 1.3, meaning that ternet — light traveling down the cable cannot leak
light moves more slowly in water by a factor of 1/1.3. out, assuming it is initially aimed at an angle close
enough to the axis of the cable.
Refraction, the bending of light, occurs for the fol-
lowing reason. Imagine, for example, a beam of light Although most of the practical applications of the
entering a swimming pool at an angle. Because of phenomenon of refraction involve lenses, which have
the angle, one side of the beam hits the water first, curved shapes, in this lab you will be dealing almost
Preliminaries
Observations
A Index of refraction of plastic
Make the measurements you have planned in order
to determine the index of refraction of the plastic
block (or the water, whichever you have). The laser
and the block of plastic can simply be laid flat on the
table. Make sure that the laser is pointing towards
the wall.
C A virtual image
Pick up the block, and have your partner look side-
ways through it at your finger, touching the sur-
face of the block. Have your partner hold her own
finger next to the block, and move it around un-
til it appears to be as far away as your own finger.
Her brain achieves a perception of depth by subcon-
sciously comparing the images it receives from her
two eyes. Your partner doesn’t actually need to be extrapolate the rays leaving the block back into the
able to see her own finger, because her brain knows block. They should all appear to have come from the
how to position her arm at a certain point in space. same point, where you saw the virtual image. You’ll
Measure the distance di , which is the depth of the need to photocopy the tracing so that each person
image of your finger relative to the front of the block. can turn in a copy with his or her writeup.
Now trace the outline of the block on a piece of pa-
per, remove the block, mark the location of the im- Prelab
age, and put the block back on the paper. Shine
the laser at the point where your finger was origi- The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
nally touching the block, observe the refracted beam, you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
and draw it in. Repeat this whole procedure several ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
times, with the laser at a variety of angles. Finally, you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
127
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
Do the laser safety checklist, Appendix 9, tear it out,
and turn it in at the beginning of lab. If you don’t
understand something, don’t initial that point, and
ask your instructor for clarification before you start
the lab.
P1 Laser beams are supposed to be very nearly
parallel (not spreading out or contracting to a focal
point). Think of a way to test, roughly, whether this
is true for your laser.
P2 Plan how you will determine the index of re-
fraction in part A.
P3 You have complete freedom to choose any in-
cident angle you like in part A. Discuss what choice
would give the highest possible precision for the mea-
surement of the index of refraction.
Analysis
Using your data for part A, extract the index of re-
fraction. Estimate the accuracy of your raw data,
and determine error bars for your index of refrac-
tion.
Using trigonometry and Snell’s law, make a the-
oretical calculation of di . You’ll need to use the
small-angle approximation sin θ ≈ tan θ ≈ θ, for θ
measured in units of radians. (For large angles, i.e.
viewing the finger from way off to one side, the rays
will not converge very closely to form a clear virtual
image.)
Explain your results in part C and their meaning.
Compare your three values for di : the experimental
value based on depth perception, the experimental
value found by ray-tracing with the laser, and the
theoretical value found by trigonometry.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
Do the laser safety checklist, Appendix 9, tear it out,
and turn it in at the beginning of lab. If you don’t
understand something, don’t initial that point, and
ask your instructor for clarification before you start
the lab.
P1 In part A, do you want the object to be closer
to the lens than the lens’ focal length, exactly at a
distance of one focal length, or farther than the focal
length? What about the screen?
P2 Plan what measurements you will make in part
A and how you will use them to determine the lens’
focal length.
P3 It’s disappointing to construct a telescope with
a very small magnification. Given a selection of
lenses, plan how you can make a telescope with the
131
A refracting telescope
Goals
Observe how a 2-source interference pattern of
water waves depends on the distance between
the sources. The ripple tank is tank that sits about 30 cm above
the floor. You put a little water in the tank, and
produce waves. There is a lamp above it that makes
Observations a point-like source of light, and the waves cast pat-
terns of light on a screen placed on the floor. The
Light is really made of waves, not rays, so when we patterns of light on the screen are easier to see and
treated it as rays, we were making an approximation. measure than the ripples themselves.
You might think that when the time came to treat
light as a wave, things would get very difficult, and In reality, it’s not very convenient to produce a double-
it would be hard to predict or understand anything slit diffraction pattern exactly as depicted in the first
without doing complicated calculations. figure, because the waves beyond the slits are so
weak that they are difficult to observe clearly. In-
stead, you’ll simply produce synchronized circular
ripples from two sources driven by a motor.
Put the tank on the floor. Plug the hole in the side of
the tank with the black rubber stopper. If the plastic
is dirty, clean it off with alcohol and kimwipes. Wet
the four yellow foam pads, and place them around
the sides of the tank. Pour in water to a depth of
about 5-7 mm. Adjust the metal feet to level the
tank, so that the water is of equal depth throughout
1 The photo is from the textbook PSSC physics, which has
Life isn’t that bad. It turns out that all of the most a blanket permission for free use after 1970.
135
43 Wave Optics
Apparatus savvy Greek or Chinese philosopher had only thought
of it. He simply let sunlight through a pinhole in a
helium-neon laser window shade, forming what we would now call a
1/group optical bench with posts & holders 1/group coherent beam of light (that is, a beam consisting
high-precision double slits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group of plane waves marching in step). Then he held a
rulers thin card edge-on to the beam, observed a diffrac-
meter sticks tion pattern on a wall, and correctly inferred the
tape measures wave nature and wavelength of light. Since Roemer
butcher paper had already measured the speed of light, Young was
also able to determine the frequency of oscillation of
the light.
137
A double-slit diffraction pattern.
141
talking about in this case. A vector at a 45 ◦ angle
can be produced by adding two perpendicular vec-
tors of equal length. The crystal therefore cannot
respond any differently to 45-degree polarized light
than it would to a 50-50 mixture of light with 0-
degree and 90-degree polarization.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Given the angle θ between the polarizing films,
predict the ratio |E0 |/|E| of the transmitted electric
field to the incident electric field.
P2 Based on your answer to P1, predict the ra-
tio P 0 /P of the transmitted power to the incident
power.
P3 Sketch a graph of your answer to P2. Super-
imposed on the same graph, show a qualitative pre-
diction of how it would change if the polaroids were
not 100% perfect at filtering out one component of
the field.
Analysis
Discuss your qualitative results in terms of superpo-
sition and vector addition.
Graph your results from part E, and superimpose a
theoretical curve for comparison. Discuss how your
results compare with theory. Since your measure-
ments of light intensity are relative, just scale the
theoretical curve so that its maximum matches that
of the experimental data. (You might think of com-
paring the intensity transmitted through the two po-
laroids with the intensity that you get with no po-
laroids in the way at all. This doesn’t really work,
however, because in addition to acting as polarizers,
the polaroids simply absorb a certain percentage of
the light, just as any transparent material would.)
143
45 The Photoelectric Effect
Apparatus of light could be visualized as a stream of machine-
gun bullets. The electrons would be small targets,
Hg gas discharge tube but when a “light bullet” did score a hit, it packed
light aperture assembly enough of an individual wallop to knock the elec-
lens/grating assembly tron out immediately. Based on other experiments
photodiode module, support base, and coupling rod involving the spectrum of light emitted by hot, glow-
digital multimeter (Fluke) ing objects, Einstein also proposed that each photon
pieces of plywood had an energy given by
green and yellow filters
E = hf ,
145
things you should check to make sure the orientation focus, check and make sure that the square side
is right: (1) Sighting along the tube like a gun, you of the unit is away from the Hg tube.
should see that it looks like it’s lined up with the
center of the grating. (2) The tube can be lifted out The photodiode module can be rotated on its
on a hinge so that you can see the glass photodi- post so that the light goes straight down the
ode tube inside the box; check that light is actually tube. If you don’t line it up correctly, you’ll
falling on the opening on the side of the tube. (3) be able to tell because the voltage will creep
Take data using the UV line. If you don’t get a big- up slowly, rather than shooting up to a certain
ger voltage for this line than for the others, then the value and stopping. There is a screw that is
light is not making it in to the photodiode. supposed to allow you to lock the photodiode
into position at the correct angle. Make sure
to loosen the screw before trying to aim the
Observations photodiode, and lock it once it’s aimed cor-
rectly. If your photodiode won’t lock in place,
You can now determine the stopping voltages corre- you need to tighten the aluminum post that
sponding to the five different colors of light. forms the base of the box.
Hints:
Prelab
The biggest possible source of difficulty is stray
light. The room should be dark when you do The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
your measurements. you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
The shortest wavelengths of light (highest fre- you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
quencies), for which the energy of the pho- my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
tons is the highest, readily produce photoelec- you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
trons. The photocurrent is much weaker for
the longer wavelengths. Start with the short- The week before you are to do the lab, briefly famil-
wavelength line and graduate to the more diffi- iarize yourself visually with the apparatus.
cult, lower frequencies. Don’t forget the filters P1 In the equation eVs = hf − Es , verify that all
for the yellow and green lines! three terms have the same units.
If the button to zero the voltage doesn’t work, P2 Plan how you will analyze your data to deter-
it is because the batteries are dead. mine Planck’s constant.
Goals
Observe wave interference patterns (diffraction
patterns) of electrons, demonstrating that elec-
trons exhibit wave behavior as well as particle
behavior.
Introduction
The most momentous discovery of 20th-century physics
has been that light and matter are not simply made
of waves or particles — the basic building blocks of
light and matter are strange entities which display
both wave and particle properties at the same time.
In our course, we have already learned about the
experimental evidence from the photoelectric effect The electron diffraction tube. The distance labeled as
showing that light is made of units called photons, 13.5 cm in the figure actually varies from about 12.8 cm
which are both particles and waves. That proba- to 13.8 cm, even for tubes that otherwise appear identical.
bly disturbed you less than it might have, since you
most likely had no preconceived ideas about whether
light was a particle or a wave. In this lab, however,
you will see direct evidence that electrons, which you Method
had been completely convinced were particles, also
What you are working with is basically the same
display the wave-like property of interference. Your
kind of vacuum tube as the picture tube in your tele-
schooling had probably ingrained the particle inter-
vision. As in a TV, electrons are accelerated through
pretation of electrons in you so strongly that you
a voltage and shot in a beam to the front (big end)
used particle concepts without realizing it. When
of the tube, where they hit a phosphorescent coat-
you wrote symbols for chemical ions such as Cl−
ing and produce a glow. You cannot see the electron
and Ca2+ , you understood them to mean a chlorine
beam itself. There is a very thin carbon foil (it looks
atom with one excess electron and a calcium atom
like a tiny piece of soap bubble) near where the neck
with two electrons stripped off. By teaching you to
joins the spherical part of the tube, and the elec-
count electrons, your teachers were luring you into
trons must pass through the foil before crossing over
the assumption that electrons were particles. If this
to the phosphorescent screen.
lab’s evidence for the wave properties of electrons
disturbs you, then you are on your way to a deeper The purpose of the carbon foil is to provide an ultra-
understanding of what an electron really is — both fine diffraction grating — the “grating” consists of
a particle and a wave. the crystal lattice of the carbon atoms themselves!
149
panel of the HV supply, and switch the switch on You need to get data down to about 2 or 3
the HV supply to the right, so it knows you’re using kV in order to get conclusive results from this
the right-hand panel. experiment. The tubes are not quite identi-
cal, and were not designed to operate at such
The following connections are specified in the doc-
low voltages, so they haven’t been tested un-
umentation, although I don’t entirely understand
der those conditions. Experience has shown
what they’re for. First, connect the electrode X to
that some of the tubes work at lower voltages
the same plug as the cathode.1 Also, connect F1 to
than others. The group that has the tube that
C with the wire that has the 100-kΩ resistor spliced
works the best at low voltages can share their
into it. The circuit diagram on page 152 summarizes
low-voltage data with the other groups.
all this.
Check your circuit with your instructor before turn-
ing it on! Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
Observations you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
You are now ready to see for yourself the evidence of you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
the wave nature of electrons, observe the diffraction my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
pattern for various values of the high voltage, and you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
figure out what determines the wavelength of the
The week before you are to do the lab, briefly famil-
electrons. You will need to do your measurements
iarize yourself visually with the apparatus.
in the dark.
Read the safety checklist.
You will measure the θ’s, and thus determine the
wavelength, λ, for several different voltages. Each P1 It is not practical to measure θ1 and θ2 directly
voltage will produce electrons with a different veloc- with a protractor. Come up with a plan for how to
ity, momentum, and energy. get the angles indirectly using trigonometry.
Hints: The figure shows the vacuum tube as having a par-
ticular shape, which is a sphere with the foil and
phosphor at opposite ends of a diamater. In reality,
While measuring the diffraction pattern, don’t
the tubes we’re using now are not quite that shape.
touch the vacuum tube — the static electric
To me, they look like they may have been shaped
fields of one’s body seem to be able to perturb
so that the phosphor surface is a piece of a sphere
the pattern.
centered on the foil. If so, then arc lengths across
It is easiest to take measurements at the high- the phosphor can be connected to diffraction angles
est voltages, where the electrons pack a wallop very simply via the definition of radian measure.
and make nice bright rings on the phosphor. P2 If the voltage difference across which the elec-
Start with the highest voltages and take data trons are accelerated is V , and the known mass and
at lower and lower voltages until you can’t see charge of the electron are m and e, what are the
the rings well enough to take precise data. To electrons’ kinetic energy and momentum, in terms
get unambiguous results, you’ll need to take of V , m, and e? (As a numerical check on your re-
data with the widest possible range of voltages. sults, you should find that V = 5700 V gives KE =
9.1 × 10−16 J and p = 4.1 × 10−23 kg·m/s.)
In order to reach a definite conclusion about
what λ is proportional to, you will need accu- P3 All you’re trying to do based on your graphs is
rate data. Do your best to get good measure- judge which one could be a graph of a proportional-
ments. Pay attention to possible problems in- ity, i.e., a line passing through the origin. Because
curred by viewing the diffraction patterns from of this, you can omit any constant factors from the
different angles on different occasions. Try re- equations you found in P1. When you do this, what
peating a measurement more than once, and do your expressions turn out to be?
seeing how big your random errors are. P4 Why is it not logically possible for the wave-
1 Ifyou look inside the tube, you can see that X is an extra length to be proportional to both p and KE? To
electrode sandwiched in between the anode and the cathode. both 1/p and 1/KE?
I think it’s meant to help produce a focused beam.
Analysis
Once you have your data, you can try plotting λ as
a function of, say, the kinetic energy, KE, of the
electrons, and see if it makes something simple like
a straight line. Make sure your graph includes the
origin (see below). You could also try plotting λ
as a function of the electrons’ momentum, p, or as
a function of other quantities such as 1/KE, 1/p,
etc. You can simplify your analysis by leaving out
constant factors.
What does λ seem to be proportional to? Your data
may cover a small enough range of voltage that more
than one graph may look linear. You can rule one
out by checking whether a line fit through the data
points would pass near the origin, as it must for a
proportionality. This is why it is important to have
your graph include the origin.
151
The circuit for the new setup.
155
tics to let you see an image of the slit, not the tube The white plastic pedestal should have already been
itself. The point of using a telescope is that it pro- adjusted correctly to get the diffraction grating ori-
vides angular magnification, so that a small change ented correctly in three dimensions, but you should
in angle can be seen visually. check it carefully. There are some clever features
built into the apparatus to help in accomplishing
A lens is used inside the collimator to make the light
this. As shown in the figure, there are three axes
from the slit into a parallel beam. This is important,
about which the grating could be rotated. Rotation
because we are using mλ = d sin θ to determine the
about axis 1 is like opening a door, and this is ac-
wavelength, but this equation was derived under the
complished by rotating the entire pedestal like a lazy
assumption that the light was coming in as a parallel
Susan. Rotation about axes 2 (like folding down a
beam. To make a parallel beam, the slit must be
tailgate) and 3 are accomplished using the tripod of
located accurately at the focal point of the lens. This
screws underneath the pedestal. The eyepiece of the
adjustment should have already been done, but you
telescope is of a type called a Gauss eyepiece, with
will check later and make sure. A further advantage
a diagonal piece of glass in it. When the grating is
of using a lens in the collimator is that a telescope
oriented correctly about axes 1 and 2 and the tele-
only works for objects far away, not nearby objects
scope is at θ = 0, a beam of light that enters through
from which the reflected light is diverging strongly.
the side of the eyepiece is partially reflected to the
The lens in the collimator forms a virtual image at
grating, and then reflected from the grating back to
infinity, on which the telescope can work.
the eye. If these two axes are correctly adjusted, the
The objective lens of the telescope focuses the light, reflected image of the crosshairs is superimposed on
forming a real image inside the tube. The eyepiece the crosshairs.
then acts like a magnifying glass to let you see the
First get a rough initial adjustment of the pedestal
image. In order to see the cross-hairs and the image
by moving the telescope to 90 degrees and sight-
of the slit both in focus at the same time, the cross-
ing along it like a gun to line up the grating. Now
hairs must be located accurately at the focal point
loosen the screw (not shown in the diagram) that
of the objective, right on top of the image.
frees the rotation of the pedestal. Put a desk lamp
behind the slits of the collimator, line up the tele-
Setup scope with the m = 0 image (which may not be
exactly at α = 180 degrees), remove the desk lamp,
Turn on both gas discharge tubes right away, to let cover the whole apparatus with the black cloth, and
them get warmed up. position a penlight so that it shines in through the
hole in the side of the eyepiece. Adjust axes 1 and
Adjusting the optics at the start of the experiment is
2. If you’re far out of adjustment, you may see part
vital. You do not want to fail to get the adjustments
of a circle of light, which is the reflection of the pen-
right and then spend several frustrating hours trying
light; start by bringing the circle of light into your
fruitlessly to make your observations.
field of view. When you’re done, tighten the screw
First you must check that the cross-hairs are at the that keeps the pedestal from rotating. The pedestal
focal point of the objective. If they are, then the im- is locked down to the tripod screws by the tension
age of the slits formed by the objective will be at the in a spring, which keeps the tips of two of the screws
same point in space as the crosshairs. You’ll be able secure in dimples underneath the platform. Don’t
to focus your eye on both simultaneously, and there lower the screws too much, or the pedestal will no
will be no parallax error depending on the exact po- longer stay locked; make a habit of gently wiggling
sition of your eye. The easiest way to check this is the pedestal after each adjustment to make sure it’s
to look through the telescope at something far away not floating loose. Two of the spectrometers have
(& 50 m), and move your head left and right to see if the diagonal missing from their eyepieces, so if you
the crosshairs move relative to the image. Slide the have one of those, you’ll have to borrow an eyepiece
eyepiece in and out to achieve a comfortable focus. from another group to do this adjustment.
If this adjustment is not correct, you may need to
For the adjustment of axis 3, place a piece of masking
move the crosshairs in or out; this is done by sliding
tape so that it covers exactly half of the slits of the
the tube that is just outside the eyepiece tube. (You
collimator. Put the Hg discharge tube behind the
need to use the small screwdriver to loosen the screw
slits. The crosshairs should be near the edge of the
on the side, which is recessed inside a hole. The hole
tape in the m = 0 image. Move the telescope out to a
may have a dime-sized cover over it.)
large angle where you see one of the high-m Hg lines,
157
length difficult to measure accurately, so including 3 → 2, 4 → 2, 5 → 2, and 6 → 2 transitions. Based
the violet-violet pair actually worsens the quality of on E = hf , which of these should correspond to
the final result. Therefore you end up just measuring which colors?
two pairs (eight angles).
P5 Based on the Bohr equation, predict the ratio
The angles are measured using a vernier scale, which λblue−green
is similar to the one on the vernier calipers you have
λpurple
already used in the first-semester lab course. Your
final reading for an angle will consist of degrees plus for hydrogen, expressing your answer as the ratio of
minutes. (One minute of arc, abbreviated 1’, is 1/60 two integers.
of a degree.) The main scale is marked every 30
minutes. Your initial, rough reading is obtained by
noting where the zero of the vernier scale falls on the Self-Check
main scale, and is of the form “xxx ◦ 0’ plus a little Before leaving lab, make sure that your wavelengths
more” or “xxx ◦ 30’ plus a little more.” Next, you are consistent with your prediction from prelab ques-
should note which line on the vernier scale lines up tion P5, to a precision of no worse than about one
most closely with one of the lines on the main scale. part per thousand.
The corresponding number on the vernier scale tells
you how many minutes of arc to add for the “plus a
little more.” Analysis
As a check on your results, everybody in your group Throughout your analysis, remember that this is
should take independent readings of every angle you a high-precision experiment, so you don’t want to
measure in the lab, nudging the telescope to the side round off to less than five significant figures.
after each reading. Once you have independent re-
sults for a particular angle, compare them. If they’re We assume that the following constants are already
consistent to within one or two minutes of arc, aver- known:
age them. If they’re not consistent, figure out what e = 1.6022 × 10−19 C
went wrong.
k = 8.9876 × 109 N·m2 /C2
h = 6.6261 × 10−34 J·s
Prelab c = 2.9979 × 108 m/s
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do- The energies of the four types of visible photons
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If emitted by a hydrogen atom equal En − E2 , where
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to n = 3, 4, 5, and 6. Using the Bohr equation, we have
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
1 1
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab. Ephoton = A − 2 ,
4 n
The week before you are to do the lab, briefly famil- where A is the expression from the Bohr equation
iarize yourself visually with the apparatus. that depends on the mass of the electron. From the
P1 The nominal (and not very accurate) spacing two lines you’ve measured, extract a value for A.
of the grating is stated as 600 lines per millimeter. If your data passed the self-check above, then you
From this information, find d, and predict the angles should find that these values for A agree to no worse
αL and αR at which you will observe the 404.656 nm than a few parts per thousand at worst. Compute
violet mercury line. an average value of A, and extract the mass of the
electron, with error bars.
P2 Make sure you understand the first three vernier
readings in the figure, and then interpret the fourth Finally, there is a small correction that should be
one. made to the result for the mass of the electron be-
cause actually the proton isn’t infinitely massive com-
P3 In what sequence do you expect to see the Hg pared to the electron; in terms of the quantity m
lines on each side? Make a drawing showing the given by the equation on page 154, the mass of the
sequence of the angles as you go out from θ=0. electron, me , would actually be given by me = m/(1−
P4 The visible lines of hydrogen come from the m/mp ), where mp is the mass of the proton, 1.6726×
10−27 kg.
Optics.
Prelab question 2.
159
48 The Michelson Interferometer
Apparatus by distance equal to a quarter of a wavelength of the
light, the total round-trip distance traveled by the
Michelson interferometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group wave is changed by half a wavelength, which switches
Na and H gas discharge tubes . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group from constructive to destructive interference, or vice
tools inside drawer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 set/group versa. Thus if the mirror is moved by a distance d,
2 × 4 piece of wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/group and you see the light go through n complete cycles
colored filters (Cambosco and others) of appearance and disappearance, you can conclude
that the wavelength of the light was λ = 2d/n.
To make small and accurate adjustments of the mir-
Goals ror easier to do, the micrometer is connected to it
through a level that reduces the amount of move-
Determine the wavelength of a line of the emis- ment by a factor k, approximately equal to 5.23;
sion spectrum of sodium or hydrogen. the micrometer reads the bigger distance D = kd
that it actually travels itself, so the wavelength is
The Michelson interferometer is a device for measur- λ = 2D/kn.
ing the wavelength of light, used most famously in Another trick to make the apparatus easier to use
the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887, which was is that the mirrors A and B are slightly curved.
later interpreted as disproving the existence of the This means that instead of seeing a field of light
luminiferous aether and supporting Einstein’s theory that varies uniformly between dark and bright as
of special relativity. you turn the knob, instead you see a set of concen-
tric rings (called fringes), which expand or contract
depending on which direction you turn the knob.
Turn on the sodium discharge tube, and let it warm
up until it’s yellow.
Remove the drawer from the box, and take out the
tool kit. Unscrew the screws on the bottom of the
box that lock the interferometer to the floor of the
box, and very carefully take the instrument out of
the box. Screw the two aluminum legs into the bot-
tom of the interferometer, and lay a piece of wood
flat under the third leg, which is a threaded rod; this
makes the apparatus level.
Place the discharge tube near the entrance window
of the apparatus. If you look through the viewing
window, you will see the image of the tube itself,
As shown in the figure, the idea is to take a beam reflected through the mirrors. To make this into a
of light from the source, split it into two perpendic- uniform circle of light, place the ground glass screen
ular beams, send it to two mirrors, and then recom- (inside the bag of tools) in the bracket at the en-
bine the beams again. If the two light waves are in trance window.
phase when recombined, they will reinforce, but if
they are out of phase, they will cancel. Since the Mirror B needs to be perfectly perpendicular to mir-
two waves originated from the splitting of a single ror A, and its vertical plane needs to be matched to
wave, the only reason they would be out of phase mirror A’s. This is adjusted using the knobs on mir-
was if the lengths of the two arms of the apparatus ror B, one for vertical adjustment and one for hor-
were unequal. Mirror A is movable, and the distance izontal. A rough initial adjustment can be done by
through which it moves can be controlled and mea- aligning the two images of the circular entrance win-
sured extremely accurately using a micrometer con- dow. You can then hang the metal pointer (from the
nected to the mirror via a lever. If mirror A is moved bag of tools) on the top of the ground glass screen,
161
Appendix 1: Format of Lab Writeups
Lab reports must be three pages or less, not counting If this is a lab that has just one important numerical
your raw data. The format should be as follows: result (or maybe two or three of them), put them
in your abstract, with error bars where appropriate.
Title
There should normally be no more than two to four
Raw data — Keep actual observations separate from numbers here. Do not recapitulate your raw data
what you later did with them. here — this is for your final results.
These are the results of the measurements you take
If you’re presenting a final result with error bars,
down during the lab, hence they come first. You
make sure that the number of significant figures is
should clearly mark the beginning and end of your
consistent with your error bars. For example, if you
raw data, so I don’t have to sort through many pages
write a result as 323.54 ± 6 m/s, that’s wrong. Your
to find your actual presentation of your work, below.
error bars say that you could be off by 6 in the ones’
Write your raw data directly in your lab book; don’t
place, so the 5 in the tenths’ place and the four in
write them on scratch paper and recopy them later.
the hundredths’ place are completely meaningless.
Don’t use pencil. The point is to separate facts from
opinions, observations from inferences. If you’re presenting a number in scientific notation,
with error bars, don’t do it like this
Procedure — Did you have to create your own
methods for getting some of the raw data?
Do not copy down the procedure from the manual. 1.234 × 10−89 m/s ± 3 × 10−92 m/s ,
In this section, you only need to explain any meth-
ods you had to come up with on your own, or cases
where the methods suggested in the handout didn’t do it like this
work and you had to do something different. Do not
discuss how you did your calculations here, just how (1.234 ± 0.003) × 10−89 m/s ,
you got your raw data.
Abstract — What did you find out? Why is it im- so that we can see easily which digit of the result the
portant? error bars apply to.
The “abstract” of a scientific paper is a short para-
graph at the top that summarizes the experiment’s Justification and Reasoning — Convince me of
results in a few sentences. If your results deviated what you claimed in your abstract.
from the ideal equations, don’t be afraid to say so. Cconvince me that the statements you made about
After all, this is real life, and many of the equa- your results in the abstract follow logically from your
tions we learn are only approximations, or are only data. This will typically involve both calculations
valid in certain circumstances. However, (1) if you and logical arguments. Continuing the debate meta-
simply mess up, it is your responsibility to realize phor, if your abstract said the U.S. should have free
it in lab and do it again, right; (2) you will never trade with China, this is the rest of the debate, where
get exact agreement with theory, because measure- you convince me, based on data and logic, that we
ments are not perfectly exact — the important issue should have free trade.
is whether your results agree with theory to roughly In your calculations, the more clearly you show what
within the error bars. you did, the easier it is for me to give you partial
The abstract comes first in your writeup, but you’ll credit if there is something wrong with your final re-
write it last, so leave a little space for it. sult. If you have a long series of similar calculations,
you may just show one as a sample. If your prelab
The abstract is not a statement of what you hoped involved deriving equations that you will need, re-
to find out. It’s a statement of what you did find peat them here without the derivation. Try to lay
out. It’s like the brief statement at the beginning out complicated calculations in a logical way, go-
of a debate: “The U.S. should have free trade with ing straight down the page and using indentation to
China.” It’s not this: “In this debate, we will discuss make it easy to understand. When doing algebra,
whether the U.S. should have free trade with China.” try to keep everything in symbolic form until the
very end, when you will plug in numbers.
Procedure
We followed the procedure in the lab manual with
the following additions: (1) To make sure both ob-
jects fell at the same time, we put them side by side
on a board and then tipped the board. (2) We waited
until there was no wind.
Abstract
We dropped a cannon ball weighing two hundred
pounds and a musket ball weighing half a pound si-
multaneously from the same height. Both hit the
ground at nearly the same time. This contradicts
Aristotle’s theory that heavy objects always fall faster
than light ones.
163
Appendix 2: Basic Error Analysis
No measurement is perfectly ex- itations of the measuring devices.
165
are to use the techniques explained below to deter- Method #2: Repeated Measurements and the Two-
mine the error bars on your final result. There are Thirds Rule
two sets of techniques you’ll need to learn: If you take repeated measurements of the same thing,
then the amount of variation among the numbers can
techniques for finding the accuracy of your raw tell you how big the random errors were. This ap-
data proach has an advantage over guessing your random
techniques for using the error bars on your raw errors, since it automatically takes into account all
data to infer error bars on your final result the sources of random error, even ones you didn’t
know were present.
Roughly speaking, the measurements of the length
Estimating random errors in raw of the sofa were mostly within a few mm of the av-
data erage, so that’s about how big the random errors
were. But let’s make sure we are stating our error
We now examine three possible techniques for es- bars according to the convention that the true result
timating random errors in your original measure- will fall within our range of errors about two times
ments, illustrating them with the measurement of out of three. Of course we don’t know the “true”
the length of the sofa. result, but if we sort out our list of measurements
in order, we can get a pretty reasonable estimate of
Method #1: Guess
our error bars by taking half the range covered by
If you’re measuring the length of the sofa with a the middle two thirds of the list. Sorting out our list
metric tape measure, then you can probably make a of ten measurements of the sofa, we have
reasonable guess as to the precision of your measure-
202.8 cm 202.9 202.9 203.1 203.1
ments. Since the smallest division on the tape mea-
203.1 203.2 203.3 203.4 203.4
sure is one millimeter, and one millimeter is also near
the limit of your ability to see, you know you won’t Two thirds of ten is about 6, and the range covered
be doing better than ± 1 mm, or 0.1 cm. Making al- by the middle six measurements is 203.3 cm - 202.9
lowances for errors in getting tape measure straight cm, or 0.4 cm. Half that is 0.2 cm, so we’d esti-
and so on, we might estimate our random errors to mate our error bars as ±0.2 cm. The average of the
be a couple of millimeters. measurements is 203.1 cm, so your result would be
stated as 203.1 ± 0.2 cm.
Guessing is fine sometimes, but there are at least two
ways that it can get you in trouble. One is that stu- One common mistake when estimating random er-
dents sometimes have too much faith in a measuring rors by repeated measurements is to round off all
device just because it looks fancy. They think that your measurements so that they all come out the
a digital balance must be perfectly accurate, since same, and then conclude that the error bars were
unlike a low-tech balance with sliding weights on it, zero. For instance, if we’d done some overenthu-
it comes up with its result without any involvement siastic rounding of our measurements on the sofa,
by the user. That is incorrect. No measurement is rounding them all off to the nearest cm, every single
perfectly accurate, and if the digital balance only number on the list would have been 203 cm. That
displays an answer that goes down to tenths of a wouldn’t mean that our random errors were zero!
gram, then there is no way the random errors are The same can happen with digital instruments that
any smaller than about a tenth of a gram. automatically round off for you. A digital balance
might give results rounded off to the nearest tenth of
Another way to mess up is to try to guess the error
a gram, and you may find that by putting the same
bars on a piece of raw data when you really don’t
object on the balance again and again, you always
have enough information to make an intelligent esti-
get the same answer. That doesn’t mean it’s per-
mate. For instance, if you are measuring the range
fectly precise. Its precision is no better than about
of a rifle, you might shoot it and measure how far
±0.1 g.
the bullet went to the nearest centimeter, conclud-
ing that your random errors were only ±1 cm. In Method #3: Repeated Measurements and the Stan-
reality, however, its range might vary randomly by dard Deviation
fifty meters, depending on all kinds of random fac-
The most widely accepted method for measuring er-
tors you don’t know about. In this type of situation,
ror bars is called the standard deviation. Here’s how
you’re better off using some other method of esti-
the method works, using the sofa example again.
mating your random errors.
167
In 2004, Chand et al. redid the measurement by a
more precise technique, and found that the change was
0.6 ± 0.6 parts per million. This is only one standard
deviation away from the expected value of 0, which
should be interpreted as being statistically consistent
with zero. If you measure something, and you think
you know what the result is supposed to be theoret-
ically, then one standard deviation is the amount you
typically expect to be off by — that’s why it’s called
the “standard” deviation. Moreover, the Chand result
is wildly statistically inconsistent with the Webb result
(see the example on page 171), which means that one
experiment or the other is a mistake. Most likely Webb
at al. underestimated their random errors, or perhaps
there were systematic errors in their experiment that
they didn’t realize were there.
Precision of an average
We decided that the standard deviation of our mea-
surements of the length of the couch was 0.2 cm,
i.e., the precision of each individual measurement
was about 0.2 cm. But I told you that the average,
203.1 cm, was more precise than any individual mea-
surement. How precise is the average? The answer
is that the standard deviation of the average equals
standard deviation of one measurement
√ .
number of measurements
(An example on page 170 gives the reasoning that
leads to the square root.) That means that you can
theoretically measure anything to any desired preci-
sion, simply by averaging together enough measure-
ments. In reality, no matter how small you make
your random error, you can’t get rid of systematic er-
rors by averaging, so after a while it becomes point-
less to take any more measurements.
will give you the density if you measure the cube’s Qb = change in ρ = 0.009 g/cm3
mass and the length of its sides. Suppose you mea- (3) The error bars on ρ are given by the formula
sure the mass very accurately as m = 1.658±0.003 g,
q
but you know b = 0.85±0.06 cm with only two digits
σ ρ = Q2m + Q2b ,
of precision. Your best value for ρ is 1.658 g/(0.85 cm)3 =
2.7 g/cm3 .
yielding σρ = 0.01 g/cm3 . Intuitively, the idea here
How can you figure out how precise this value for ρ is that if our result could be off by an amount Qm
is? We’ve already made sure not to keep more than because of an error in m, and by Qb because of b,
twosignificant figures for ρ, since the less accurate then if the two errors were in the same direction, we
piece of raw data had only two significant figures. might by off by roughly |Qm | + |Qb |. However, it’s
We expect the last significant figure to be somewhat equally likely that the two errors would be in oppo-
uncertain, but we don’t yet know how uncertain. A site directions,
p and at least partially cancel. The ex-
simple method for this type of situation is simply to pression Q2m + Q2b gives an answer that’s smaller
change the raw data by one sigma, recalculate the than Qm + Qb , representing the fact that the cancel-
result, and see how much of a change occurred. In lation might happen.
this example, we add 0.06 cm to b for comparison.
The final result is ρ = 2.69 ± 0.01 g/cm3 .
b = 0.85 cm gave ρ = 2.7 g/cm3
Example: An average
b = 0.91 cm gives ρ = 2.0 g/cm3 On page 168 I claimed that averaging a bunch of mea-
The resulting change in the density was 0.7 g/cm3 , surements reduces the error bars by the square root of
so that is our estimate for how much it could have the number of measurements. We can now see that
this is a special case of propagation of errors.
been off by:
For example, suppose Alice measures the circumfer-
ρ = 2.7 ± 0.7 g/cm3 . ence c of a guinea pig’s waist to be 10 cm, Using the
guess method, she estimates that her error bars are
about ±1 cm (worse than the normal normal ∼ 1 mm
Propagation of the error from sev- error bars for a tape measure, because the guinea pig
was squirming). Bob then measures the same thing,
eral variables and gets 12 cm. The average is computed as
What about the more general case in which no one
A+B
piece of raw data is clearly the main source of error? c = ,
2
For instance, suppose we get a more accurate mea-
surement of the edge of the cube, b = 0.851 ± 0.001 where A is Alice’s measurement, and B is Bob’s, giving
cm. In percentage terms, the accuracies of m and 11 cm. If Alice had been off by one standard devia-
b are roughly comparable, so both can cause sig- tion (1 cm), it would have changed the average by 0.5
d =W −C ,
171
Appendix 4: Graphing
Review of Graphing Type in your x values in the first column, and
your y values in the second column. For sci-
Many of your analyses will involve making graphs. entific notation, do, e.g., 5.2e-7 to represent
A graph can be an efficient way of presenting data 5.2 × 10−7 .
visually, assuming you include all the information
needed by the reader to interpret it. That means
labeling the axes and indicating the units in paren- Select those two columns using the mouse.
theses, as in the example. A title is also helpful.
Make sure that distances along the axes correctly
represent the differences in the quantity being plot- From the Insert menu, do Chart.
ted. In the example, it would not have been correct
to space the points evenly in the horizontal direction,
because they were not actually measured at equally When it offers you various styles of graphs to
spaced points in time. choose from, choose the icon that shows a scat-
ter plot, with dots on it (XY Chart).
173
Appendix 5: Finding Power Laws from Data
For many people, it is hard to imagine how scientists It’s fairly easy to figure out what’s going on just
originally came up with all the equations that can by staring at the numbers a little. Every time you
now be found in textbooks. This appendix explains increase the height of the animal by a factor of 10, its
one method for finding equations to describe data food consumption goes up by a factor of 100. This
from an experiment. implies that f must be proportional to the square of
h, or, displaying the proportionality constant k = 3
explicitly,
Linear and nonlinear relationships f = 3h2 .
When two variables x and y are related by an equa-
tion of the form
Use of logarithms
y = cx ,
Now we have found c = 3 and p = 2 by inspection,
where c is a constant (does not depend on x or y), but that would be much more difficult to do if these
we say that a linear relationship exists between x weren’t all round numbers. A more generally appli-
and y. As an example, a harp has many strings of cable method to use when you suspect a power-law
different lengths which are all of the same thickness relationship is to take logarithms of both variables.
and made of the same material. If the mass of a It doesn’t matter at all what base you use, as long as
string is m and its length is L, then the equation you use the same base for both variables. Since the
data above were increasing by powers of 10, we’ll use
m = cL logarithms to the base 10, but personally I usually
just use natural logs for this kind of thing.
will hold, where c is the mass per unit length, with log10 h log10 f
units of kg/m. Many quantities in the physical world shrew 0 0.48
are instead related in a nonlinear fashion, i.e., the rat 1 2.48
relationship does not fit the above definition of lin- capybara 2 4.48
earity. For instance, the mass of a steel ball bearing
is related to its diameter by an equation of the form This is a big improvement, because differences are
so much simpler to work mentally with than ratios.
m = cd3 , The difference between each successive value of h
is 1, while f increases by 2 units each time. The
where c is the mass per unit volume, or density, of fact that the logs of the f 0 s increase twice as quickly
steel. Doubling the diameter does not double the is the same as saying that f is proportional to the
mass, it increases it by a factor of eight. square of h.
Measuring current
When using a meter to measure current, the meter
must be in series with the circuit, so that every elec-
tron going by is forced to go through the meter and
contribute to a current in the meter. Many multime-
ters have more than one scale for measuring a given
thing. For instance, a meter may have a milliamp
scale and an amp scale. One is used for measuring
small currents and the other for large currents. You
may not be sure in advance what scale is appropri-
ate, but that’s not big problem — once everything
is hooked up, you can try different scales and see
what’s appropriate. Use the switch or buttons on the
front to select one of the current scales. The connec-
tions to the meter should be made at the “common”
socket (“COM”) and at the socket labeled “A” for
Amperes.
Measuring voltage
For a voltage measurement, use the switch or but-
tons on the front to select one of the voltage scales.
(If you forget, and hook up the meter while the
switch is still on a current scale, you may blow a
fuse.) You always measure voltage differences with
a meter. One wire connects the meter to one point
in the circuit, and the other connects the meter to
another point in a circuit. The meter measures the
difference in voltage between those two points. For
example, to measure the voltage across a resistor,
you must put the meter in parallel with the resis-
tor. The connections to the meter should be made
at the “common” socket (“COM”) and at the socket
labeled “V” for Volts.
185