Practical Work
During the first year, you will do one experiment each week you are in the lab - these include classical physical phenomena such as waves and optics, measuring the speed of light (2 different methods), quantum physics experiments such as wave particle duality, and black body radiation, measuring the charge on the electron, and the charge/mass ratio, thermodynamics and mechanics, and some practical electronics.
You are introduced to a wide variety of experimental techniques and given training in the practical skills, experimental planning and critical analysis that you'll need for the rest of the course. Our laboratory teaching gradually develops your experimental skills and eventually equips you for the more independent experimental work in the final year project.
The use of computers for data acquisition, data analysis and theoretical work is a continuing theme throughout the course. In the teaching laboratories you will be trained to use PCs for controlling experiments, gathering measurements and analysing the experimental results. The complexity of the tasks you perform will increase as you progress through each year of the course. In addition to the use of computers in the laboratory, you will carry out a computational physics course in which you will be shown algorithms and programming techniques and their application to a wide variety of physics problems.