Welcome to the home page for Physics 407 Senior Laboratory in Modern Physics offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

In this course students perform experiments in modern physics involving advanced techniques in electronics, optics, nuclear and solid state physics. This course meets the writing-intensive requirement. As with all George Mason courses the honor code is in effect. Students should be particularly beware of plagarism in their laboratory write-ups.

The objective of this course is, through the process of performing experiments, to have students think through the scientific method from theory, to prediction, to instrumentation, to data analysis and interpretation.

Prerequisite: 21 credits of physics courses, including PHYS 305 and 308.

If you are a student with a disability and you need academic accommodations, please see me and contact the Office of Disability Resources at 703/993-2474. All academic accommodations must be arranged through that office.

Instructor: Dr. Karen Sauer Office: Science and Tech I, Rm 217 Phone: 3-1281 email: ksauer1@gmu.edu Office Hours: by appointment Text Books: Primary Experiments in Modern Physics Second Edition A Melissinos and J Napolitano (Academic Press, 2003) Supplemental Books (on reserve at the Johnson Center): The Art of Experimental Physics DW Preston and ER Dietz (John Wiley, 1991) An introduction to error analysis : the study of uncertainties in physical measurements JR Taylor(University Science Books, 1997 ) Chaotic dynamics : an introduction GL Baker and JP Gollub (Cambridge University Press, 1996)

Lecture Place:Science and Technology I, Room 310 Lecture Time: Monday/Wednesday 12:30-1:00 Lab Place:Science and Technology I, Room 236 Lab Time: Monday/Wednesday 1:00-4:00 Grading: Experiments (4 completed, with write up) - 70% Tests (2) - 15% Radiation Safety - 5% Homework - 10% All homework and reports are to be given in hardcopy. Electronic copies will not be accepted.

Experiment Requirements:

• There will be a pass/fail oral exam before each experiment. You may not go to the next experiments until you have turned in the report from the previous one.
• This course fulfills in full the Writing-Intensive requirement in the physics major. It does so through the four 1000-word (minimum) reports, which have the due dates listed below. The first research report will be completed through a draft/feedback/revision process. The first draft will be due Sept. 28th; I will provide commentary on the draft, and the revised draft will be due on Oct. 13th. In general, for manuscript preparation we will be following the guidelines laid out in the American Institute of Physics (AIP) style manual. For examples of the kind of articles you should be writing, you can look at the free sample articles of the AIP journals. For details of manuscript preparation specific to this course see PHYS 407 report guidelines.

Special Dates:

• 21 Sept: Quiz on radiation safety.
• 28 Sept: 1st draft of 1st experiment report due.
• 13 Oct: final revision of 1st experiment report due.
• 19 Oct: test 1.
• 21 Oct: 2nd experiment report due.
• 16 Nov: 3rd experiment report due.
• 7 Dec: test 2.
• 16 Dec: 4th experiment report due by 5 PM in my mailbox.

Experiments:

• Brownian Motion and Optical Tweezing (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)
• Cavendish Experiment (measurement of G)
• Chaotic Pendulum
• Compton Scattering
• Electron Spin Resonance
• Faraday Rotation
• Franck-Hertz Experiment
• Johnson Noise
• Hall Effect in a Semiconductor
• Microwaves
• Muon Lifetime
• Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
• Optical Pumping
• Plasma Diagnostics
• Two-Slit Interference, One Photon at a Time
• Zeeman Effect (using a Fabry-Perot interferometer)

Other Topics:

• Fitting Methods
• Probability and statistics

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