Schedule
Week 1 (Lecture)
Weeks 2/3 (Paper 1)
Weeks 4/5 (Paper 2)
Week 6 (Lecture)
Weeks 7/8 (Paper 3)
Weeks 9/10 (Paper 4)
Possible Papers
Papers from the Journal of Undergraduate Research in Physics
| V4N2.pdf (Measuring the lifetime of a metastable state in an optical material) |
| V5N1.pdf (The crystallization of an electrodeposited nickel-phosphorus alloy studied by x-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry) |
| V6N1.pdf (The speed of sound - still air vs. moving air) |
| V7N1.pdf (The evaluation of a mechanism for irradiation enhanced adhesion) |
| V7N2.pdf (The calibration of a charcoal canister for determination of radon concentration) |
| V8N1.pdf (Nonlinear optical absorption in ZnSe) |
| V9N1.pdf (An apparatus for hysteresis loop measurement using the magneto-optical Kerr effect) |
| V9N2.pdf (Fabrication and optical properties of porous silicon) |
| V10N1.pdf (The friction and wear properties of diamond-like carbon films) |
| V7N2.pdf & V10N2.pdf (The speed of carbon dioxide bubbles rising in a glass of beer & follow-up) |
| V11N1.pdf (Dynamics of a charged particle near an x-type magnetic neutral point) |
| V13N1.pdf (Study of the resonance of a low-frequency speaker using laser doppler velocimetry) |
| V13N2.pdf (Art in physics: exotic macrostructures in swelling polyelectrolyte gels) |
| V14N1.pdf (Acoustic Bragg scattering from an array of cylindrical rods suspended in air) |
| V14N2.pdf (The effects of distributions of scatterers on compressional ultrasonic waves) |
| V15N1.pdf (Stable frequencies of a vertical rotating chain) |
| V16N1.pdf (Evaluation of thick target yields of deuteron induced gamma ray emission from Li,B,N,F,Na, and Mg) |
| V16N2.pdf (Diffraction patterns of light from helical objects: measurement and calculation) |
| V17N1.pdf (Design of a low cost gamma ray spectrometer to investigate special relativity) |
Might be too close to relativistic electrons lab
| V18N1.pdf (Determination of the temperature dependence of Young's modulus for stainless steel using a tuning fork) |
| V18N2.pdf (Laboratory measurements of velocity profiles in simulated tornado-like vortices) |
| V19N1.pdf (An experimental study of stick-slip friction using sandpaper as a simple model of earthquake dynamics) |
Papers from the American Journal of Physics
* Pros: Nice simple experiment, real data with uncertainties on the results, a nuanced comparison with literature and discussion
| * Gravity-driven fluid oscillations in a drinking straw |
Pros: This one is super short (3 pages), very basic physics, easy to digest.
Cons: Loose with uncertainties, a little light on details about the more complex model they use.
| * A simple mechanical apparatus for measuring the surface tension of soap bubbles |
Pros: simple physics, clever apparatus, data with error bars and comparison to exceptions
Cons: about half the paper is a long digression about “stability” which is relevant to a person trying to replicate the experiment, but less important to a person interested in results
Historical and/or experiment-specific papers
Browninan motion
Compton scattering
Muon lifetime
Neutron mass
Wave-Particle Duality
Ideas from Practice makes proficient: teaching undergraduate students to understand published research
Reading worksheet assignments (RWs)
What was the purpose of this research? - What did the researchers do? (Summarize method, including participants, procedure, independent variables, and dependent variables). - What were the main results? - What is the take-home message (conclusion)? - What criticisms do you have of this research? Is there anything you would do differently? - (Content-specific)
Summary task
Participants were asked to write a summary of the article. Specifically, they were told that their summaries should address the following guiding questions:
1. What are the most important points of the study in this article? Include enough detail about the goals, design, and method of the study to put those points in context.
2. What are the real-world implications of the findings of this study?
3. Are there any potential weaknesses in the design or procedure of this study that limit how much you trust the findings?
Participants were instructed to take no more than 50 min to read the article and write the summary, and to not write a summary that was longer than one typed page (500 words).
