Lab procedures

FYI: there is no lab manual that you need to buy, I'll just post the lab procedures here for you to read through a few days before each lab.

You don't need to print the procedures ahead of time either, unless you prefer reading them that way. You can print the procedures when you arrive at the lab, and just read them on screen before that. 

Tomorrow's reading

For tomorrow, we'll cover the mathematical aspects of motion in 1D, and just start on 2D motion. The former will cover essentially all of Ch. 2, the latter sections 3.1 and 3.2 of Ch. 3.

I made one small mistake today when we were talking about the graphs at the very end. The plots I was analyzing should have been position versus time, not velocity versus time. The slope at any given point on the position graph is the instantaneous velocity. If we plot velocity verus time, the slope at any given point is the instantaneous acceleration.

As a result, we'll start off tomorrow morning by discussing graphical analysis of motion again, just so you see it correctly, and then move on to the mathematical analysis of motion.

And, one last thing: be sure to read the lab procedure and statistics introduction before tomorrow's lab. Things will go a lot smoother & more quickly if you've read it ahead of time ...

Lab 1: statistics & uncertainty

For Wednesday's lab, we'll learn to count cards.

Actually, we'll use normal and 'stacked' decks to learn about standard deviation and uncertainty, which we'll use throughout the rest of the laboratories. Please read the procedure (which includes in introduction to basic statistics) before Wednesday's lab session. This one is longer than usual ...

Introductory slides

Find them here; some details about how the class will work, etc.

Welcome to PH101!

At the bottom of this page, or here, you will find our course calendar, which you should review carefully. If you click on a lecture and show 'more details' you should see the reading for that lecture. We will stick to our schedule rigidly, as our time is quite short over the summer term.

You may also want to look over the course syllabus and other information, which you find in myBama. Some course introduction slides can be found here, which I'll use on the first day of class.