Christian Brothers University
Physics 202 Laboratory Departmental Syllabus
Introductory Physics II Lab

Catalog Data Laboratory to accompany PHYS 202.
Corequisite: Physics 202.
One semester; one credit.
Textbooks Lab Manual for Introductory Physics II, written by CBU Physics faculty, published by the department.
Calculator Policy You must bring a calculator to each lab meeting.
Prerequisites You should have fundamental skills in college algebra, trigonometry, functions and problem solving. You should also have some basic laboratory skills which should have been acquired in the Physics 201 laboratory.
Goals 1. To investigate in more detail the topics discussed in lecture by direct, hands-on observation.

2. To test the models developed in Physics 202 in the real-world environment of the laboratory. To see how well the models work and to find their limitations.

3. To increase the qualitative understanding of physical phenomena by directly seeing how physical quantities affect each other. In particular, to examine the effects of electric and magnetic fields on charged particles, to observe how different quantities affect the characteristics of light, and to examine what quantities affect the detection of nuclear radiation and how they affect the detection.

4. To see how the process of measurement affects experimental results through measurement uncertainty.


Syllabus
There is one laboratory meeting scheduled per week. Each meeting is two hours long. Eleven experiments are usually performed over the semester in eleven or twelve meetings. Depending on the instructor, students may turn in brief, written lab reports for each experiment or three longer reports for three of the experiments with brief, oral reports for the remaining experiments.
List of Experiments
Final Exam There is no final exam for the laboratory course.
Performance Evaluation Student performance is rated by a final letter grade which is determined by a combination of written and/or oral lab reports.
Resources The course instructor is available outside of the classroom a minimum of 10 hours per week for individual help.
Other students in the laboratory can be resources. Students usually perform experiments in pairs and discussion of results with lab partners and other students is expected. The exchange of ideas and information is encouraged in the lab meetings.
Attendance You must attend the lab meetings and perform all of the required experiments.
Coordinators Dr. Johnny Holmes, Professor of Physics
Br. Kevin Ryan, F.S.C., Assistant Professor of Physics
Dr. John Varriano, Associate Professor of Physics
Computer Usage Computers are used by students to plot electric field line distributions in two dimensions. The resulting distributions are analyzed and discussed.
The use of word processing and graphing software is strongly encouraged in the written lab reports.
Estimated ABET Category Content This course is not for engineering majors. They should enroll in Physics 251 Laboratory.


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