Physics Notes: Labs
These are materials for physics labs, with an emphasis on data analysis using statistical principles. For now the documents herein are background information. Later there will be specific lab exercises constructed with three components: (1) background material primarily for the instructor; (2) a lab worksheet to be assigned to the students as homework a day or two ahead of the actual lab session in school; this will have synthetic data, the calculations necessary, and the answers for those calculations; (3) a blank lab worksheet.
A key issue is how to implement the statistical calculations. The TI calculators do not provide uncertainties for regression parameters unless separately programmed (the TI code for this is provided in the "Experimental Data Analysis" PDF herein.) Another approach is to use MATLAB/OCTAVE code, which will be given in the background document for each lab exercise. OCTAVE is free, open-source, and could be run by the students after typing in the provided code.
