FY531: Experimental physics I

Students taking the course are expected to:

• Have knowledge of basic mechanics, electromagnetism and thermodynamics.
• Have knowledge of basic calculus including ordinary and partial differential equations and basic concepts in statistics.
• Have knowledge of computational tools such as MATLAB

The course builds on the
knowledge acquired in fundamental physics on the first and second year
of the curriculum. The course provides a basis for later courses in
experimental physics, for doing individual projects on experimental
physics and for participating in research and development projects with
an experimental content.

In relation to the competence profile of the degree it is the explicit focus of the course to:

• Give the competence to perform physics experiments including planning, execution, analysis and reporting of the experiments.
• Give skills to investigate physical phenomena with experimental methods.
• Give research-based knowledge on the methods of experimental physics.

The learning objective of the course is that the student demonstrates the ability to:

• Describe the design and construction of experiments in the course.
• Describe the underlying theory of experiments in the course.
• Perform derivations of theoretical models of relevance for the experiments in the course.
• Perform experiments in the laboratory and assess the suitability of own results with respect to data analysis.
• Perform a quantitative analysis of experimental data including the use of computational and statistical methods where relevant.
• Derive conclusions from the analysis of own data.
• Account for experiments and results in the form of a written report.

The following main topics are contained in the course:

1. Sound waves
2. Surface tension and wetting.
3. Brownian motion.
4. The magneto-optical effect: Faraday rotation

Laboratory
experiments are performed in groups of 2-3 students.As introduction to
the exercises, the central concepts and methods are introduced.

The teaching activities are reflected in an estimated allocation of the workload of an average student as follows::

• Intro phase (lectures, class lessons) - 18 hours
• Training phase: 16 hours, including 16 hours laboratory

In the Intro phase an introduction is given to the principles behind the experimental work and a guide to writing reports.
In the Skills training phase the laboratory work is completed on the basis of work done during the Intro phase.
In the Study phase, individual preparations are done for the Skills training phase and after the lab exercises data analysis and writing of reports is done.

Activities during the study phase:

• Preparation for the experimental work and the construction work.
• Problem solving
• Analysis of experimental data.
• Writing of reports
• Preparation for the oral exam.