Oscilloscope Activities in PH 112 lab (MJM sections)

Error Analysis (simple rules and examples for handling errors)

Important Items (how my lab sections run, what is important to me)

M. J. Moloney CL-109 (by the stairway halfway down from the mailboxes toward the labs)
Office: 877-8302    Home: 466-1328     moloney@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu

• Each week one of the partners is the 'principal investigator'. He/she is responsible for the conduct of the experiment (assisted by his/her partner) and for writing it up.
• Partners share this responsibility, each writing up half the labs.
• If partners wish to go 50-50 on each lab report, they must notify me.

• All students must be present for all laboratory experiments.
• Unauthorized absence means writing up an additional report, or failing the lab and the course.
• Do not put your partner's name on the report if your partner was not in lab (the report should show who is actually there).
• IF YOU FAIL THE LAB, YOU FAIL THE COURSE. (Departmental Policy)

Here are items important to me in the style of the report:

A. Report readily conveys what was done in lab
(reader does not have to guess or fill in gaps)

B. Apparatus sketch(es) shows and labels all essentials (helps explain the measurements)

C. Data values identified as to units, trials, who took the data, equipment used to measure, etc. (reader does not have to wonder)

D. Report is coherently organized (reader doesn't have to struggle with missing items or items out of place. If an item is out of place there should be a reference to where it is located)

E. Calculations are easy to follow (easy to see what various calculations mean, easy to tell all values used in calculations, easy to see if calculated experimental results agree with theory. Proper sample calculations help with this; see below).

Other important items.

• Do 2 or 3 trials on each measurement.
• Estimate error on measurements.
  (One simple way is to calculate average and standard deviation, and let the standard error be the error estimate.)
• Record raw lab data in your book. Don't subtract numbers in your head or on scratch paper, then write the result in the lab book. Enter the raw numbers in the lab book, before subtracting or multiplying, or whatever.
• NUMBER THE PAGES OF THE REPORT.
• Omit a 'theory' section.
• Use a standard physics lab notebook, mottled cover, quadrilled paper. (It may be a previously-owned book).
• Refer to the current Introductory Laboratory Physics manual. Only the current version of an experiment is valid.
• Make graphs as large as possible (graph area at least 1/3 the area of a notebook page)
• Include one sample calculation of each type in your report.
  A proper sample calculation has a line of symbols, a line of numbers and units, and a line with the final result. [See Lab manual, for an example of a proper sample calculation].
  Note that mass and length were both measured and error estimates made. Then mu is writtten down as M/L, then numerical values and units are applied, then the final calculation done.

• One line for symbols
• one line with numbers and units put in
• one line for final numerical answer with units