College / Physics

Interference and Diffraction

Diffraction and interference patterns are measured for single and double slits by scanning the laser pattern with a light sensor and plotting light intensity...

College / Physics

Electrostatic Charges

Compare and contrast the results of three different methods of charging: (1) rubbing two objects together; (2) touching a charged object to a neutral one;...

College / Physics

Electric Field Mapping

This qualitative activity introduces the concepts of equipotential surfaces and electric fields. A number of rules about the electric field are verified....

College / Physics

Ohm's Law

Verify Ohm’s Law for commercially manufactured resistors and to examine the limits of validity for Ohm’s Law. The behavior of resistors, a diode, and...

College / Physics

Series Parallel Circuits

Series/Parallel circuits are reduced to an equivalent resistance and that resistance is verified by measuring the total current and total voltage. Also,...

College / Physics

Kirchhoff's Circuit Laws

Verify the laws for a resistive circuit using a DC input and for a time varying RC circuit. The DC portion and the RC portion of the lab are each stand-alone...

College / Physics

Capacitance

Investigate how the capacitance of a parallel-plate capacitor varies when the plate separation is changed and to qualitatively see the effect of introducing...

College / Physics

RC Circuit

For a capacitor discharging through a resistor, the half-life for the decay is measured directly and also calculated using the capacitive time constant.

College / Physics

LRC Series Circuit

The phase differences between the output voltage, the voltage across the inductor, the voltage across the capacitor, and the voltage across the resistor...

College / Physics

LRC Resonance

The current through a series LRC circuit is examined as a function of applied frequency and the effects of changing the values of the resistance, inductance,...

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