General Physics General Instructions for Activities

A) Most activities are divided into two parts: Observations observing the general behavior of a system and collecting data, Analysis interpreting the data and reporting the results. B) Observations must be done in class, with your active participation. They must not be done outside of class unless your instructor tells you do so. You will record your observations, and your written record must be clear and neatly written. C) Analysis is done after you have completed your observations. You will make your own analysis notes based on the analysis steps and questions in that day's activity instructions. Once you are satisfied that your analysis is correct, you will prepare a brief written report to be handed in for grading. D) Your Written Report is due at the end of the class. You should note at the top of the page your name, and activity number. The written report will include your data, analysis, and results. You are permitted to work with and obtain help from any source as you prepare your report however, you may not directly copy another person's report. Your written report should be succinct usually two pages (front and back of one sheet) will suffice. Handwritten reports are fine but they must be legible. E) Graphs are often included. These are usually sketches with approximately linear scales. All graphs in your written reports must have their axes clearly labeled, with units (eg. time (s) or distance (cm)), and include numerical scales. They must clearly show the general shapes of the lines and/or curves, values of minimum/maximum points, and any other features that are important for understanding the data. You need not include data that lie outside the range of a given measurement. For example, if you are analyzing the motion of a cart, any data taken after you stop the cart with your hand are irrelevant.

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Studio Physics I

Activity 01 Measurements
Goal: determine the statistical properties of a length measurement. Apparatus: meter stick, a table, an instructor or a TA, Excel or calculator Procedure: 1) Your instructor will place a meter stick next to the table, instructor or TA. From your seat, estimate the table, instructor or TAs height and also estimate how accurate your measurement is. 2) Discuss your answers with the other members of your team but not the other teams. Collectively decide the answer you will report for the length L, and uncertainty E, and record them in your report. 3) Round your measurement to the nearest cm and report them to the instructor, who will make a list of the values measured by each team. You now have about 15 independent measurements of the same quantity available for analysis. Analysis: Making a statistical analysis of the 15 measurements is a convenient way to report your findings. The average of all measurements of L becomes the measured value and the statistical spread in the values becomes an estimate of the uncertainty in the measurement. This works for many measurements, a few measurements, or even one measurement. 4) Create a spreadsheet with the individual measurements in one column, one entry in each cell. What is the mean (average) value of all the individual measurements? To find this you can program a cell in an adjacent column with an algebraic expression or you can use a predefined Excel command [eg. =average(a1:a15), where a1 is the cell address of the first measurement]. In Excel, placing an equal sign in front of an entry indicates that it is a math expression rather than a number. The value is calculated and displayed in the cell. Dont forget to report units. 5) Click on the first cell then click the "sort up" button on the menu bar. This re-orders the numbers in that column to make the next step easier. In a new column select the first cell and program the expression that gives the deviation from the mean [eg. =(a1-mean), where mean is the average value you previously calculated]. Hit enter then grab the handle on the first cell and drag downward to copy the expression to the other cells using the proper cell indices. Be sure to use the numerical value for the mean that you calculated above. 6) Are the deviations from the mean clustered near the mean value, as expected for a Gaussian distribution? Sketch a graph of the deviation vs. measurement index (cell number). To have Excel do the plot, select the first cell and click the Chart Wizard on the main menu bar or tab, then select the line option. Dont forget to label the axes. 7) Now determine the standard deviation of the measured values from the mean by using the appropriate Excel command [eg. =stdev(a1:a15)]. Report this value as , the uncertainty in L. This is often referred to as the error in L. 8) Compare your teams estimate of the uncertainty in L with the standard deviation. They should have the same order of magnitude (ie. equal within a factor of three). If you had made only one measurement then your single estimate of E would have been the end of the analysis. 9) Calculate the mean (average) of all E values reported by the teams. How does this compare with the standard deviation? Each team had their own method for estimating E, so you should not expect the mean E to equal the standard deviation, but they should be comparable. In Physics I we will often make repeated measurements to sample the random variables in a measurement, then estimate the uncertainty by calculating as above. 10) Write a one paragraph summary describing your experiment giving the final results of the experiment.
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