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Experimental Physics Walter Fox Smith

Experimental Physics By Walter Fox Smith

Experimental Physics by Walter Fox Smith


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Summary

This textbook provides the knowledge and skills needed for thorough understanding of the most important methods and ways of thinking in experimental physics. The reader learns to design, assemble, and debug apparatus, to use it to take meaningful data, and to think carefully about the story told by the data.

Experimental Physics Summary

Experimental Physics: Principles and Practice for the Laboratory by Walter Fox Smith

The student's companion website and the instructor manual can be accessed here.

This textbook provides the knowledge and skills needed for thorough understanding of the most important methods and ways of thinking in experimental physics. The reader learns to design, assemble, and debug apparatus, to use it to take meaningful data, and to think carefully about the story told by the data.

Key Features:

  • Efficiently helps students grow into independent experimentalists through a combination of structured yet thought-provoking and challenging exercises, student-designed experiments, and guided but open-ended exploration.
  • Provides solid coverage of fundamental background information, explained clearly for undergraduates, such as ground loops, optical alignment techniques, scientific communication, and data acquisition using LabVIEW, Python, or Arduino.
  • Features carefully designed lab experiences to teach fundamentals, including analog electronics and low noise measurements, digital electronics, microcontrollers, FPGAs, computer interfacing, optics, vacuum techniques, and particle detection methods.
  • Offers a broad range of advanced experiments for each major area of physics, from condensed matter to particle physics. Also provides clear guidance for student development of projects not included here.
  • Provides a detailed Instructor's Manual for every lab, so that the instructor can confidently teach labs outside their own research area. The manual can be accessed here.

Experimental Physics Reviews

Smith (Haverford College) has edited a well-designed and beautifully crafted book for use in the advanced lab-a typical upper-level course taken by the physics major-that is refreshingly based on contemporary laboratory pedagogy. Smith has independently authored 8 of the 21 chapters and coauthored another. The authors of remaining chapters are mostly experienced laboratory faculty. The writing is generally fluid, balancing a friendly informality with precise instruction. The text begins with 5 foundational chapters addressing laboratory philosophy, communicating results, the ethics of research, uncertainty, and statistical analysis. The next 7 chapters focus on electronic technologies, data interfacing, optics, and vacuum technology. The last 8 chapters address more specific subject-matter topics (e.g., Biophysics, Condensed Matter Physics) but also include one on developing independent undergraduate projects. . . . this book is a substantial contribution suitable for adoption in programs that support an undergraduate upper-level physics curriculum. Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty.

- J. R. Burciaga, Colorado College, USA, in CHOICE April 2021 Vol. 58 No. 8

About Walter Fox Smith

Walter F. Smith is the Paul and Sally Bolgiano Professor of Physics at Haverford College, where he has taught the advanced lab course more than twenty times. He earned his PhD from Harvard University. He is co-author of more than 30 peer-reviewed research articles, six of which specifically focus on new experimental apparati or techniques, and maintains an active research group centered on the photoelectronic properties of organic nanowires. He is author of the textbook Waves and Oscillations: A Prelude to Quantum Mechanics.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface...................................................................................................................................................... vii

Acknowledgments...................................................................................................................................... xi

Part I Fundamentals

1. Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 3

Walter Fox Smith

2. Planning and Carrying Out Experiments...................................................................................... 7

Walter F. Smith

3. Presenting Your Results................................................................................................................. 19

Walter F. Smith

4. Uncertainty and Statistics.............................................................................................................. 29

Paul Thorman

5. Scientific Ethics............................................................................................................................... 53

Grace McKenzie-Smith

Part II Tools of an Experimentalist

6. Analog Electronics.......................................................................................................................... 73

Walter F. Smith

7. Fundamentals of Interfacing Experiments with Computers.................................................... 133

Walter F. Smith

8. Digital Electronics......................................................................................................................... 143

Brian Collett

9. Data Acquisition and Experiment Control with Python........................................................... 195

Paul Freeman and Jami Shepherd

10. Basic Optics Techniques and Hardware..................................................................................... 227

Walter F. Smith

11. Laser Beams, Polarization, and Interference............................................................................. 247

Justin Peatross and Michael Ware

12. Vacuum........................................................................................................................................... 263

Walter F. Smith

13. Particle Detection.......................................................................................................................... 267

Joseph Kozminski

Part III Fields of Physics

14. Development and Supervision of Independent Projects............................................................ 289

Melissa Eblen-Zayas

15. Condensed Matter Physics........................................................................................................... 299

Walter F. Smith

16. Biophysics....................................................................................................................................... 307

Mason Klein

17. Non-Linear, Granular, and Fluid Physics................................................................................... 327

Nathan C. Keim

18. Atomic and Molecular Physics..................................................................................................... 341

Robbie Berg and Glenn Stark

19. Photonics and Fiber Optics.......................................................................................................... 371

Jay Sharping and Walter F. Smith

20. Experiments with Entangled Photons......................................................................................... 377

Enrique J. Galvez

21. Nuclear and Particle Physics........................................................................................................ 403

Brett Fadem

Index........................................................................................................................................................431

Additional information

NLS9781032336657
9781032336657
103233665X
Experimental Physics: Principles and Practice for the Laboratory by Walter Fox Smith
New
Paperback
Taylor & Francis Ltd
2022-06-13
452
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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Customer Reviews - Experimental Physics