Plan for the rest of the Semester

1
Plan for the rest of the Semester

• Vassar College Modern Physics Laboratory
• Eric Myers
• Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Vassar College
• Spring 2005

2
End Game

• April 12 Meet in Physics 209 at 500 PM to
  discuss
• Experiment 5
• Presentations PowerPoint/Keynote/Overheads
• TeX/LaTeX/REVTeX
• April 14-26 Experiment 5 (two weeks)
• April 28 Meet in Physics 209 to discuss
• Lab reports TeX help, suggestions, etc
• Presentations PowerPoint, suggestions, etc
• Course evaluations
• April 29 Title, Abstract, and type of
  presentation are due
• Lab Report 5 due by 500 PM, in REVTeX
• May 3 Presentations 300-600 PM in Physics 209
• Lab Notebooks due

3
Modern Lab Experiments
4
Experiment 5

• You request your first, second and third choice,
  and I will assign experiments based on your
  preferences and mine.
• You can do an experiment from Column I, or you
  can do one of the selected experiments from
  Columns II or III
• You can switch lab partners.

• Electron Diffraction Verify de Broglies
  hypothesis that particles have a wavelength, and
  observe and measure diffraction of electrons from
  aluminum and carbon crystals.
• Cavendish Gravity Expt. Reproduce Cavendish's
  famous experiment to determine Newton's constant
  of gravitation to highest precision possible.
  Determine theoretical precision of apparatus.
  

5
Experiment 5

• Atomic Spectroscopy Perform several
  spectroscopic experiments of increasing precision
  and difficulty
• Calibration against Hydrogen.
• Measurement of Na, Ne, Hg spectra.
• Test resolution of Na Hg doublets.
• Try to identify "mystery mixture" based only on
  spectral signatures.
• Try to observe splitting of Hydrogen/Deuterium
  mixture.
• Determine theoretical precision of apparatus,
  perhaps design better
• Cosmic Rays II Sample the energy spectrum of
  ambient cosmic rays. Callibrate the PMT,
  scintilator, and discriminators. Set up
  additional veto triggers.
• Electron/Nucleon Spin Resonance Use radio
  frequency signals to find the "spin flip"
  frequency of a sample. (Get the apparatus to
  work!)

6
Experiment 5

• Fiber Optical Signalling Measure the speed of
  optical signals along a fiber optic cable. Set
  up a configuration to transmit a signal to
  another part of the building over fiber optic
  cable.
• Fourier Transform Spectroscopy Linear
  superposition of Red and Green lasers produces
  optical "beats" from which the unknown wavelength
  of the "GreeNe" can be determined.

7
Student Presentations

• Science is about obtaining new research results
  and about communicating those results to others!
• Each student makes a 5 minute presentation on
  some topic of interest from one of the
  experiments, as you might do at a scientific
  conference.
• Possible Topics
• A derivation
• A problem solved
• An overview of a 5th Experiment.
• Format may be one of
• PowerPoint (Templates on web)
• Keynote
• Overhead Transparencies (easiest!)
• Allow 2 minutes for questions
• Title and Abstract are due the Friday before the
  talk

8
PowerPoint Pointers

• Editing works just like MS Word
• Equations can be imported from Equation Editor ?
• Overall design can be controlled and changed via
• Slide Master
• Background
• Headers and Footers
• Default Fonts
• Levels and Indentation
• But don't get carried away
• Smaller fonts are harder to read!
• Title Master same idea for just the title slide
• Design Template can be loaded later and applied
  as needed. For this class get "ModernLab"
  template.