PHYS 401 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Home page
Welcome to Physics 401: Classical Laboratory!
Physics 401 is a one semester course intended to give students an introduction to basic laboratory techniques in experimental physics in the context of classical mechanics and electromagnetism.
In experimental physics we learn about the universe by asking it questions in a controlled way (experiment), and interpreting our observations quantitatively to constrain theoretical frameworks (analysis). In this course we will work through all aspects of this process at a level beyond that of your introductory courses:
- We will use more complex laboratory equipment than you may be used to from introductory labs: oscilloscopes, digital multimeters, signal generators, lock-in amplifiers, Hall probes, etc.
- We will focus more seriously on quantitative analysis in the presence of errors, including sources of error and noise, error propagation, basic statistics, and fitting models to data.
- Effective written communication of your results will be key priority for this course.
- We will introduce several foundational concepts not emphasized in introductory courses, notably Fourier domain signal analysis, synchronous detection, wave propagation in transmission lines, magnetic hysteresis, etc.
The tools and techniques we will use in this course are foundational to a wide variety of endeavors in science and engineering.
Announcements
Our first lecture will be on Monday, 26 Aug in 222 Loomis. We'll be going over how the course works, and preparing for the first lab activity.
Preparing for the first week
- Please read the Course Description and Class Policy before the first lecture!
- LAB: Lab will meet the first week. Be sure to check which section time you're registered for.
- Check out the Computing Tools page and start preparing some of the basics you'll need:
- Origin Pro for data analysis (use of other tools is welcome, but not as well-supported).
- Campus VPN access, for software and shared data access from home.
Workshop: Data analysis using OriginPro
- Tuesday, 3 Sept, 5:15 pm in 222 Loomis
- Please bring
- your laptop with OriginPro installed (see the Computing Tools page for instructions),
- your counting statistics data!