Fizeau’s “aether-drag” experiment in the undergraduate laboratory

A basic lock-in amplifier experiment for the undergraduate laboratory

We describe a basic experiment for the undergraduate laboratory that demonstrates aspects of both the science and the art of precision electronic measurements. The essence of the experiment is to measure the resistance of a small length of brass wire to high accuracy using a simple voltage divider and a lock-in amplifier. By performing the measurement at different frequencies and different driv...

An undergraduate laboratory experiment on quantized conductance in nanocontacts

We describe an undergraduate laboratory experiment on conductance steps observed to occur near integer multiples of 2e/h as nanocontacts form and break between gold wires in loose contact. This experimental arrangement was first described by Costa-Krämer et al. @Surf. Sci. 342, L1144 ~1995!#. A simple op-amp circuit in conjunction with an inexpensive storage oscilloscope suffice to observe the ...

A Pulse NMR experiment for an undergraduate physics laboratory

The effects of linear and quadratic drag on falling spheres: an undergraduate laboratory

A desktop experiment to demonstrate the linear and quadratic velocity dependence of drag on an object falling in a resistive medium was developed for an undergraduate laboratory. The motion of ball bearings dropped into a cylinder filled with fluid is captured and measured using computer-based imaging. The terminal velocity of falling spheres is measured as a function of size at low and high Re...

Using particle tracking to measure flow instabilities in an undergraduate laboratory experiment

Much of the drama and complexity of fluid flow occurs because its governing equations lack unique solutions. The observed behavior depends on the stability of the multitude of solutions, which can change with the experimental parameters. Instabilities cause sudden global shifts in behavior. We have developed a low-cost experiment to study a classical fluid instability. By using an electromagnet...