This is the organizational page for the Physics Introductory Labs PHY 133 for Fall 2020.

The scope of the introductory labs is to give an understanding of basic experimental methods applied in physical sciences. The experiments performed during the lab sessions are closely related to the topics covered in the lecture courses PHY 131 or PHY 125/126.

You will perform each week an experiment as indicated in the Manuals and Course Schedule section. You have 2 hr 20 min time to perform each experiment. Each experiment will come with a manual that you can access from this webpage.

You are required to perform each lab experiment by yourself, mostly together with a lab partner.

Your perfomance in the lab session will be evaluated by your teaching assistant. The evaluation is based on the score of your pre-lab quiz, taken before the beginning of lab session, your performance during the experiment and a written report that will be submitted in the week following the lab experiment. Please refer also to Lab Report Guide.

Each lab score will be made up of 15% for the pre-lab quiz and 85% for the written report.

Your final score will be an average from your single lab grades scaled by a factor (to account for TA variation) that will be determined at the end of the semester. Your final grade will be a letter grade ranging from A to F.

Your lab report will be graded as follows:

Grading for each experiment (left click to expand)

For more details, see the Guide to Lab Reports.

Here is the schedule of labs for the semester.

The first lab sessions will take place in the week starting from Monday, August 31

• Lab 0 (August 31 - September 03): Introduction to Labs, Expectations and Error Analysis
  Monday, August 31 sections do Lab 0 and Lab 1

• Lab 1 (September 08 - September 10): Pendulum (Data Sheet)
• Lab 2 (September 14 - September 17): Acceleration (Data Sheet) Corrected Sept 10!! Please Note!!
• Lab 3 (September 21 - September 24): Projectile Motion (Data Sheet)
• Lab 4 (September 28 - October 01): Atwood Machine(Data Sheet)
• Lab 5 (October 05 - October 08): Conservation of Energy (Data Sheet)

• Lab 6 (October 19 - October 22): Conservation of Momentum (Data Sheet)
• Lab 7 (October 26 - October 29): Angular Momentum (Data Sheet)
• Lab 8 (November 02 - November 05):Standing Waves (Data Sheet)
• Lab 9 (November 09 - November 12): Simple Harmonic Motion (Data Sheet)   Field Trip! A-120 → A-121, A-118 → A-119
• Lab 10 (November 16 - November 19):Ideal Gas Law (Data Sheet)

November 23 - November 27: Thanksgiving Break. No classes.

November 30 - December 07: On-line instruction only. No lab classes.
      Make-up Lab Week for Labs 6 - 10 by arrangement with instructor.

Link to All Data Sheets

Here are some documents you may find helpful (You can find more information via links on the Reference Documents Page:

Guide to Lab Reports

Guide to Uncertainty and Error Analysis (Quick Reference)

Introduction to Google Sheets     Google Sheets Tutorial

Guide to Making and Using Plots

Here is a link to the plotting tool we will use to make our graphs in this class:

PHY133/134 Plotting Tool

Assignments as of Aug 28

Section Assignments for Teaching Assistants (left click to expand)

You are responsible for keeping track of deadlines for your lab reports. A list of deadlines (and return dates for work) is available here: Due Dates

Be alert to announcements about changes to this schedule from your TA or via Blackboard.

Any lab report submitted after the deadline will not be considered and receive zero points for the lab experiment.

Exceptions for partial credit may be granted by a TA or the course instructor, with suitably documented reasons.

If you need to be absent for a lab experiment you will have to provide written documentation for a significant reason to be absent, e.g., a medical note from your doctor or a written document about jury duty.

With such documentation, you will have the opportunity to make up the lab experiment in the dedicated make-up week. Under such circumstances, please submit a make-up request via the PHY133 Make-Up Request Form

There are three ways to ask questions or report problems:

• To contact your TA, use the e-mail addresses provided at the top of this page. This is the best option for lab-specific questions, such as checking requirements.
• To contact all TAs, use PHY133_lab@stonybrook.edu. This is the best option for general physics questions. If you cannot get in touch with your own TA and have a question on how to do a calculation (or why numbers look weird), this is also a reasonable place to contact.
• For administrative concerns, contact the course instructor, Richard Lefferts, at phy_introlabs@stonybrook.edu or in Office Hours in the Virtual Help .