Laboratory Schedule, Physics 110, Spring 2007

Room 205 Small
Week of: Topic
29 Jan Introductory Session. Sale of lab manuals for Physics 110. Discussion of planned experiments and hints concerning exam questions that may be related to the lab.
5 Feb #1 Lab safety (esp. electrical), Marconi's rule "When near dangerous voltages, always keep one hand in a pocket (to avoid allowing a current to flow through the heart)", Simple Machines, Vectors, Measurement and error; Galileo's experiment to measure "g".
12 Feb #2 Springs, Pendulum, Torsion pendulum, Clocks; mechanical oscillators
19 Feb #3 Basic Heat and Temperature, Thermometers
26 Feb #4 Calorimetry; heat capacity; phase transitions
5 Mar #5 Taking apart(and reassembling) a four-cycle gasoline engine; heat pumps
19 Mar #6 Electrostatics; permanent magnets; the magnetic compass, N.B., please read the text; Chapter 11 "Electric and Magnetic Forces" before coming to this lab.
26 Mar #7 Series and parallel circuits; Ohm's law, Light bulbs, Resistive heating
2 Apr #8 Motors, Generators, NOTE: In this lab we will build an electric motor from your take-home kit. Be sure to bring the take-home kit for this lab
9 Apr #9 Building a microphone, Loudspeakers, telephones
16 Apr #10 Lenses, mirrors, prisms and simple ray optics.
23 Apr #11 Diffraction gratings, atomic spectra, wave interference.review
30 Apr #12 Building a Simple Telescope; Review of lab topics

On the benches in room 205, we will, from time to time, have a display of items of interest to you. These can include a disassembled fax machine, an opened computer disk drive, a dehumidifier(which is an excellent "heat pump" example), an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, a cassette tape recorder, a laser printer, an old dictaphone that records on a plastic band, an old calculator, a crank-operated phonograph, a disassembled CD player, a record turntable, etc... From time to time, some of the demonstration apparatus used in the lectures or items used in earlier lab experiments will be on display.

Electrical equipment used in the lab should have instructions and safety warning where appropriate. Please practice care when touching old electrical equipment. Do not plug it in unless you first determine it is safe.