PHYS-2011: General Physics I Laboratory
Course Web Page


This web page has been set up for the students at ETSU taking PHYS-2011 General Physics I Laboratory offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Links have been set up for the students to view and download the Syllabus, Information and Policies document, Lab Report Format instructions, and the Lab Experiment instructions. All of the files listed on this site are in PDF (Portable Document Format). Should your web browser not be able to display PDF files, one can download Acrobat Reader to view these files.

Course Overview:

General Physics Laboratory I is the first laboratory course in a two-semester sequence that covers the following main sections of classical physics: (1) Classical Mechanics, (2) Solids and Fluids, and (3) Thermal Physics. The "Classical Mechanics" topics are covered in experiments with the Experiment # prefix of MEAS and MECH in the table below. In addition, we will perform one lab experiment dealing with "Fluids" (FLUID-1) and one dealing with "Thermal Physics" (THERM-1).

The main goal of this course is to demonstrate the techniques used to carry out experimental physics. Besides learning measurement techniques, the student will be trained to be very detailed in raw data collection and analysis. You will need to solve equations (just as you do in the lecture course) and come up with numerical solutions to these equation. As such, you are expected to have (and know how to use) a good scientific calculator. The Department does not have calculators to loan -- the sharing of calculators during lab period is frowned upon. The book store carries such calculators.

The laboratory experiments performed in this course complement the material covered in the General Physics I lecture course (PHYS-2010). Note however that the lecture course and the laboratory course are graded independently of each other -- the grade earned in this course (PHYS-2011) does not affect the grade eared in PHYS-2010 and vise-versa.

The lab instructions posted below have either been written by faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy of East Tennessee State University (e.g., all MEAS labs and MECH-4) or are modified versions of instructions provided by PASCO.

Course Syllabus:

Course Syllabus for PHYS-2011, General Physics I Laboratory

ETSU Syllabus Attachment.

General Physics Laboratory Software:

Six out of the 10 ``in-class'' lab experiments performed in this General Physics I Laboratory course make use of lab experiments designed by PASCO Scientific. All of these labs use the PASCO Capstone Software. Information about this software can be found by clicking this link. This website has links to lots of tutorials (and the user manual at the bottom, which has the links to the YouTube videos in it). Students are encouraged to read the material on this website prior to performing these experiments.

Labs During the Coronavirus Pandemic

During the current Coronavirus Pandemic, ETSU has elected to return to on-campus course offerings for the Fall 2021 semester. However, due to the rapid rise in COVID-19 infection rates due to the Delta Variant, classes might revert back to the ``remote'' online course offerings. Due to this, both the on-campus and online lab experiments for a given week are posted below. Make sure you download the correct lab based upon the status of course offerings at ETSU.

In the table below, there are 4 columns. The first is the dates of the given week of lab, depending upon which lab section you are enrolled. The second is a link to the "In-Class Lab," and the third, a link to the "OnLine Lab." The fourth column is the ID for a given experiment. Please note that your instructor will pass out a hardcopy of the "In-Class Lab" at the beginning of class, so students will not need to print those labs out before coming to class.

D2L Web Site

To access the course D2L web site, below is a link to get you to this:

D2L Web Site Login Page.

Lab Reports are to be turned into the instructor during class time. Should the University shift back to remote learning, you will find a Dropbox on the course D2L webpage to upload your online experiments. Note that "filled-out" experiments must be uploaded by 6 p.m. on the Due Date specified by your instructor.

Fall 2021 Laboratory Experiment Schedule:

While the labs are being carried out on campus, we will be doing the "In-Class Labs" posted below. Note that these "In-Class" lab experiment directions posted below will be passed out to you in class.

As the semester progresses, some of the "In-Class" labs posted below, will be modified.

Week In-Class Lab Online Lab Experiment ID
August 23-25 Measurement Lab  
Measurement Lab Report   		Measurement Online Lab MEAS-1
Aug 30, 31, Sep 1   (Passed Out In Class) (Instructor's Discretion) MEAS-1 Quiz
September 6-8 No PHYS-2011 Labs This Week (Labor Day: 9/6)
September 13-15 The Force Table:
    TRIG REVIEW & VECTORS		 Vectors and The Force Table     MEAS-3
September 20-22 Projectile Motion Projectile Motion Online MECH-1
September 27-29 Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion Newton's Laws and Friction MECH-2
October 4-6 Atwood’s Machine Atwood's Machine Online MECH-4
October 11-13 No PHYS-2011 Labs This Week (Fall Break)
October 18-20 Conservation of Energy Conservation of Energy MECH-6
October 25-27 Conservation of Momentum Conservation of Momentum MECH-3
November 1-3 Centripetal Force Centripetal Force MECH-7
November 8-10 No PHYS-2011 Labs This Week (Veteran's Day)
November 15-17 Buoyancy Buoyancy Online FLUID-1
November 22-24 No PHYS-2011 Labs This Week (Thanksgiving Holiday)
Nov 29, 30, Dec 1   Specific Heat Specific Heat Online THERM-1



Lab Policies

The sharing of lab data is not allowed after the lab has been performed, that is, should a student miss a lab, their lab partner is not to supply them with the data to write their reports. Even though students in the same lab group will have the same measurements made for the experiments, each student’s Lab Report should be unique. That is, the write-up must be their own work. Lab Reports that are virtually "carbon copies" of another student's will be regarded as a violation of academic misconduct.

Each student is required to have their own scientific calculator with you during the lab session. Such calculators have the ability to express numbers in scientific notation, be able to calculate trigonometry functions and their inverse, have logarithm and anti-logarithms functions, calculate powers and roots of numbers, and possess the exponential function.

There are NO grades of Incomplete (I) given to a student in a General Physics Lab course. Your grade will be based upon your total lab score as indicated on the Lab Syllabus.

Significant digits rules will always be followed, units should always be given with numbers, and measurement uncertainties should always be present with your measurements when multiple measurements are made to deduce these uncertainties. Fractional points will be deducted from the total score if these items are missing.

Click here to go to the Department of Physics and Astronomy homepage.

Last modified: August 26, 2021 by D.G. Luttermoser