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Physics Educational Laboratory Information Hub
Undergraduate Physics Labs
Physics Labs
The Department of Physics and Astronomy believes in giving its students a generously wide variety of different introductory laboratory experiences. Physics and astrophysics majors perform more than forty different hands-on experiments in the laboratory in the first two years of their program.
Students gain experience with a broad range of laboratory equipment.
Introductory
Power supplies, Vernier calipers, and thermometers.
Intermediate
Geiger counters, thermocouples, and oscilloscopes.
Advanced
Optical pyrometers, x-ray spectrometers, and pulse height analyzers.
Our experiments give students practical experience in a variety of fundamental physics topics.
Classical Mechanics
The study of motion: How things move (kinematics) and the forces and movements of energy that give rise to those movements (dynamics and statics).
Complex Systems
The interactions within complex systems often give rise to unexpected and non-trivial behaviour making these systems more than the sum of their constituents.
Data Analysis
Data collected through experimentation needs to be cleaned and analyzed with careful attention to error and uncertainty.
Electricity and Magnetism
The relationship between electro static and dynamic phenomena and magnetism is understood via the overarching framework of electromagnetism.
Fluid Mechanics
The study of fluid mechanics has allowed us to accurately model the behaviour of everything from flow in pipelines to the aerodynamics of spacecraft and the performance of their engines.
Thermal and Atomic Physics
Understanding the interaction between energy, heat, and atomic structure. Thermionic emission of electrons forms the basis for many experiments probing quantum phenomena.
Vibrations and Waves
The study of the dynamics of waves has found far reaching applications in classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics.
Physics Demonstrations
Physics Demos
The Department of Physics and Astronomy has developed a range of lecture demonstrations to correspond with the development of new lectures as well as to bring new approaches to instructing well-established courses.
Refraction Tank
The refraction tank is a glass tank with a light source which shines light at various different angles. When the tank is filled with water, some rays of light will pass through the surface of the water and others will be internally reflected. This demonstrates how all incident rays past the critical angle will be internally reflected.
see more demos