Physics Experiments To Inspire Undergraduates?

PShardlow writes "I have recently been asked to propose two projects for a 1st year undergraduate teaching laboratory in the summer term this year. These are projects that a pair of students will spend 36 hours working on, and as such can be quite in-depth. A good project would include something they can build, something they can measure, and something they can calculate. Previous projects have included cloud chambers, a Jacobs ladder, a laser Doppler speed camera, laser sound detection, smoke rings, and physical random number generators. This is an opportunity to really inspire students into the joy that can be experimental physics — but it only works if we demonstrators propose interesting projects. So I ask the Slashdot community for suggestions of fascinating projects to do, things that are relevant to today's physics problems but could feasibly be completed by a pair of first-year undergraduates in 72 man hours."

The Amateur Scientist

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a collection of "The Amateur Scientist" columns from Scientific American would be a good source of ideas? A CD [amazon.com] of the columns has been published.

Bell's Inequality and entanglement

[xPsi]

Here are a doublet of papers for an undergraduate laboratory demonstrating Bell's Inequality and and entangled photons. The whole apparatus (detailed in the second paper) is estimated to cost USD 15k circa 2002, so the optical elements have probably come down in price since then.

1. Entangled photons, nonlocality, and Bell inequalities in the undergraduate laboratory. [American Journal of Physics 70, 903 (2002)], Dietrich Dehlinger, MW Mitchell. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0205171/ [arxiv.org]

2. Entangled photon apparatus for the undergraduate laboratory. [American Journal of Physics 70, 898 (2002)], Dietrich Dehlinger, MW Mitchell. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0205172/ [arxiv.org]

Exploratorium Cookbooks

[shmorhay]

The San Francisco Exploratorium, an interactive, hands-on science museum, published a three-volume set of instructions for creating useful and educational (and sturdy) projects for children and adults to manipulate and study, although these are now hard to find, and expensive. Search the used books website http://www.abebooks.com/ [abebooks.com] for "Exploratorium Cookbook" (and grab any copies you can) and see also the Exploratorium website at http://www.exploratorium.edu/ [exploratorium.edu] . See also the very recently published book "Laboratory Experiments in College Physics" by C. Bernard and C. Epp, published in December 2008 (ISBN 978-0471002512) available on http://www.amazon.com./ [www.amazon.com]

Re:The Amateur Scientist

[TapeCutter]

Let's not forget the late great Prof. Julius Sumner Miller [abc.net.au]. The clip from episode 11 will take a bit of explaining.

Re:Exploratorium Cookbooks

[shmorhay]

To save you some digging, here are the direct links for buying each of the volumes directly from the Exploratorium itself (these show up when you search that website) -- http://store.exploratorium.edu/browse.cfm/4,622.html [exploratorium.edu] and http://store.exploratorium.edu/browse.cfm/4,775.html [exploratorium.edu] and http://store.exploratorium.edu/browse.cfm/4,760.html [exploratorium.edu] and for all three as a [discounted] full set (for $350) -- http://store.exploratorium.edu/browse.cfm/4,19.html [exploratorium.edu] These may be overkill for your immediate needs, but if you are ever tasked with starting your own hands-on science museum, the Exploratorium folks have very kindly documented their approach.

Have a look at IEEE RWEP projects

[accmdq]

Have a look at IEEE's RWEP project library (http://www.realworldengineering.org/library.html) Quoting: It is "A library of high-quality, tested, hands-on team-based society-focused projects for first-year students. These projects are designed to increase the recruitment, persistence to degree, and satisfaction of all students, and particularly women, in baccalaureate EE, CE, CS, BE and EET degree programs." Most of them have a strong physics background...

Trap Dust Particles Mid-air with a Paul Trap

[RadicalRhinoceros]

As an undergraduate, I recently built a Paul Trap from this paper: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991AmJPh..59..807W [harvard.edu] It was rad! I suggest using a tesla coil to charge the particles.

Response to comments so far

[PShard]

Dear SlashDotters, Firstly may I thank you for taking your time to respond in such numbers. Some of your suggestions and comments I shall attempt to respond to directly but due to the sheer volume this is an impossibility due to the paper I must submit by the end of the day (for the progress of science and all). There have been a number of excellent project proposals, far more than I could hope to run, but I'm sure this advice will become helpful to my colleagues as well. Firstly may I clarify that these are university students, not school students. The definition of these things seems to go slightly awry when converting between us British and our esteemed American colleagues. Secondly, thank you very much to those of you who have spent the time to suggest changes in teaching practices. Advice on focusing on core ideas instead of flashy gimmicks is something which I agree with entirely. There is no point in getting the student to do something which looks cool but they cannot contemplate or understand what is going on. This said I feel there is no reason why these two things cannot be coupled together giving both that fundamental understanding and the experience of a project which may inspire them away from banking and into a life of science. Thirdly I thank those of you that have pointed me to online resources for ideas, I havenâ(TM)t had a chance to run through them yet, but will get round to them in the full course of time. Fourthly regrettably some of the projects suggested I have disregarded as they have either already been covered or will be covered the following years (Such as measurement of G, The Hall effect and resonant modes in sand on a plate to name a few). Others I have been forced to resign to the drawer of ideas other demonstrators will be putting forward, some of them have been doing the same thing for years, such as the Theremin, the autonomous robots or building an ECG. And others I have not yet excluded, such as the bubble fusion idea (sonoluminescence). Actually I believe we may have a full experimental kit for a sonoluminescence experiment, but I will have to investigate. Finally I will thank those of you who have suggested projects that I may well run, and the inspiration for project connections that I have gleaned from some of your responses. I am currently considering a number of them including looking at solar cells and methods for improving light capture onto a the small area. Or looking at the possibility of building a spectrometer, calibrating it and then using it for calculations on either extra-solar red shifts or from a physical chemistry side (chemiluminescene â" energy transition and catalysts for example). Anyway, I better return to work now and think further on this later. With great thanks, Peter p.s. Those who made me smile get a special thank-you. Submarine avoidance may become a field of further investment.

MIT 8.01x course

[Anonymous Coward]

MIT used to have an 8.01x and 8.02x for physics w/ experiments - you may want to search about that

Re:Frickin' Lasers

[sgtrock]

In the '70s your high school's physics lab had:

1) A laser
2) More than one o'scope (which if I recall correctly, cost about $10,000 apiece at the time)
3) At least one magnet that weighed more than 100 pounds, with the implication that smaller ones were also readily available.
4) Microwave emitters
5) You were able to do something called the Millikan's (sp?) Oil Experiment which I've never heard of. A quick googling seems to indicate that some sort of electrical field generator was necessary.

In the '70s my brand new (built in '72) high school in northern Minnesota had:

1) A handful of scales with assorted weights up to about 2 kg
2) Some small mirrors and prisms
3) 10 year old text books brought up from the old school
4) very little else.

We also had a brand new track and field layout, a brand new Olympic class swimming pool and dive pool, and an updated hockey rink and football field. Not hard to tell where our the voters' priorities were in our school district, eh? :(

Now, I'll grant you that we were on the far end of the spectrum from you in terms of equipment. We had a new hire physics teacher who had joined the teachers' staff the year before I got there. Rumor had it that when he saw the state of the lab he just shook his head.

Mind you, this was a guy who was a retired U.S. Navy sub commander who had spent his time in the engine room of nuclear powered subs. He was just his thesis short of a PhD in physics. He had stopped short because he wanted to teach at the high school level. He figured that he would have a hard time getting such a position because he would be seen as overqualified if he had completed his doctorate. (How many teachers at that level have Dr. before their name, I wonder?)

He was a great teacher. Even with the almost complete lack of equipment, he did his best to create opportunities for us to demonstrate the scientific method. I did learn a lot in that class.

Still, you should understand that my high school was probably closer to the norm than yours was. As well equipped as it was, I have to wonder if it wasn't a private school. It was at least a public school in a very affluent neighborhood, and it had a very sympathetic principal and school board to be able to afford that much equipment.