Title

By Me Myself and My Partner(s)

1 PURPOSE
What physics do you intend to test this week with your experiment? Be specific and be complete, but
stay on topic. Usually our experiment will test several equations with various levels of directness and
completeness. Always communicate with complete sentences.

2 PROCEDURE
Talk about your apparatus and your method. Typically, your apparatus contains commercially available
equipment whose maker name and model number will lead the reader to a more complete description
from the manufacturer if he requires it; this saves you the trouble of providing them here. Many times
illustrations such as Figure 1 will make your description easier, quicker, and more informative.

Figure 1: Click the object (picture...) to select it. On the REFERENCES tab, click "Insert Caption".

VERY briefly, how was the apparatus used and what numbers did it yield (i.e. Figure 2 and Table 1)?
How were these numbers processed and with what tools?
3 DATA
Generally, data will occupy tables such as Table 1; but frequently the apparatus gives us different
numbers like Figure 2 and these numbers were processed first to get the numbers in Table 1. For clarity
this entire sequence should be documented in your Data; however, only a single example amply
demonstrates how this was done. The first acceleration in Table 1 comes from the quadratic term in the
model in Figure 2

𝛼 = 2𝐴. (1)
The rotational form of Newton’s law, 𝜏 = 𝐼𝛼, suggests a linear relationship between the first and third
column of Table 1, so we demonstrate this possibility in Figure 3, etc. Excessive detail is not desired;
clarity is far more important.
Table 1: The different kinds of labels may be selected from a drop-down box in the Captions dialog box. Select a table at its top
left corner; it will all turn grey when selected. Word’s equation labels are a bit troublesome to use; ask for assistance if you
cannot achieve satisfactory results.

Acceleration (rad/s2) Hanging Mass (g) Torque (×10-3 N m)

0.7048 ± 0.0015 3.93 ± 0.04 0.902
… … …

Figure 2: Right-clicking an object allows you to resize it, to specify what page position you want it, to specify whether you want
text on its left and/or right sides (and how close this text can come), whether you want to crop out a specific area, etc.
Right-clicking cells in a table allows you to insert rows and/or columns; selecting multiple rows or
columns before right-clicking allows you to insert or to delete many at once.

For those who have experience with

LaTeX, many of the commands are the
same in Word’s new equation editor as
they are in LaTeX’ “math mode”.

Newton’s law requires that the slope in

Figure 3 be equal to the disk’s moment
of inertia, so we measure (R=…) and
weigh (M=…) the disk to compute its
moment of inertia for comparison. The
equation editor can be found on the
INSERT tab at the far right
1
𝐼 = 2 𝑀𝑅 2 . (2)

Thus ends the first experiment; we have

Figure 3: If you want the caption and the figure to be a unit, install
a slope predicted by Newton’s law and
them into a text box. You can remove or change the enclosing line by
clicking LINE on the Format Shape bar (at the right?) we have a moment of inertia computed
without Newton’s law. If these two
numbers agree, then we have substantial evidence for Newton’s law.
We continue to perform other experiments to check different aspects of Newton’s law or to check the
validity of other physics.

4 ANALYSIS
Now we need to find out whether the numbers predicted by the model are equal to the numbers
measured another way without the model. Since experiments cannot yield exact data, we must use
statistics to answer this question: Is it sufficiently unlikely that the two values are equal that we can
reject the model? Disagreements, >3, suggest that we probably should reject the model unless there
are good and valid reasons for the disagreements.

𝛥 = Predicted − Measured = _____𝜎

where

𝜎 = √(δ Predicted)2 + (δ Measured)2 .

We repeat this analysis for each experiment performed.

We discuss the limitations of our experiment. What assumptions have we made that might not be
realized? What other error sources might our experiment have experienced? What other reasons might
cause our measurement and/or our prediction to vary from its true value?
What miscellaneous observations suggest one way or the other whether a particular experimental
hypothesis is true? For example, did we get a straight line like Newton said we should?

5 CONCLUSIONS
What physics have your experiments demonstrated? Carefully discuss them all. How might the
experiment be improved in the future?

Proficiency using Word requires practice, but don’t try to learn everything before submitting your first
report! There will be another opportunity next week to learn a little more.