Visual Physics

Lab and Recitation Home Page

Welcome to Visual Physics, a variation of the regular Physics 218 course.

The Physics 218 visual physics laboratory was revised and updated during the summer of 2011. New equipment was added and the experiment write-ups were redone to reflect the new location of the labs (from Heldenfels to the Michell building).

A link has been provided to access the new lab write ups and other information. http://visual.physics.tamu.edu/Lab_Experiments/

There is no laboratory manual for Physics 218. All the write ups that contain instruction for the lab experiments are located in the link above.

Old version of visual physics---

For Physics 218, these experiments utilize a state-of-the-art video system to capture the motion of objects, transfer the video sequence to a PC, and support you in extracting accurate position and time measurements that you will use in an EXCEL spreadsheet to analyze what is happening in the experiment. For Physics 208, these experiments include a number of the classic experiments with which you directly measure the quantization of charge, Coulomb's law of electric force, and the charge/mass ratio of the electron.

Your laboratory reports will be prepared using a WORD Template that is widely used for professional publication of journal articles and conference papers by professionals in most fields of science and engineering. You can find an example (PDF file) of laboratory reports. You will develop skills in technical writing and presentation that will be directly applicable in your following courses and in your work as a professional after you graduate.

Additional links:

You can read a short VP Vision Statement for visual physics, including a summary of the assessments of its effectiveness that were performed in March 2004.