physics experiment university

Department of Physics and Astronomy

General physics lab experiments.

All labs are in PDF Format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to access these files. Adobe Acrobat Reader is available on the web for free at http://www.adobe.com/.

Laboratory Manuals

Phys 001/023 - general physics i.

• Introduction (Online) (Face-to-Face) - https://youtu.be/SVrzDNAQVNU
• Measurements - https://youtu.be/O5K_aHLAo24
• Force Table - https://youtu.be/MD2nmDWZUeQ
• Rectilinear Motion - https://youtu.be/29j_lqqCrfw
• Atwood's Machine - https://youtu.be/Kq03H_d-6IA
• Ballistic Pendulum - https://youtu.be/gIKGHY4b_kI
• Rotation and Torque - https://youtu.be/33QaK-gPn54
• Simple Harmonic Motion - https://youtu.be/yVZNXrU44NY
• Archimedes Principle - https://youtu.be/5d1cPnOwgCg
• Specific Heat of Solids - https://youtu.be/K7eaqmKaKzo
• Thermal Expansion - https://youtu.be/KJSlPDhh0cM
• Resonance in Air Columns - https://youtu.be/9NrXYyVd0QM

PHYS 002/024 - General Physics II

• Electric Field - https://youtu.be/qaPN9A3Ujjg
• Networks and Wheatstone Bridge - https://youtu.be/7CNqZpiA7w0
• Ohm's Law - https://youtu.be/bh0p56dcYVE
• RC Circuits - https://youtu.be/Dq-DeUZlK7I
• External Field of a Bar Magnet and the Inverse Square Law - https://youtu.be/oKW_tVmg0pg
• Oscillators and Oscilloscope - https://youtu.be/ytikPwhLRtM
• Ray Tracing - https://youtu.be/77UkDYC7IpU
• Refraction - https://youtu.be/O7UTfYCmC8U
• Focal Length of Lenses - https://youtu.be/wHzXa22ubIE
• Diffraction - https://youtu.be/94nlba5BXl4
• Atomic Spectra - https://youtu.be/-IJ2aedYuhM

PHYS 025 - Modern Physics

• Interferometry: Measurement of Wavelength - https://youtu.be/JrXaKta_VNY
• Index of Refraction of Glass - https://youtu.be/_fnpWrqNsV8
• Photoelectric Effect: Calculating Planck's Constant - https://youtu.be/Rt_EhrFrAEM
• Photoelectric Effect: Current-Voltage of Spectral Lines, Constant Frequency, Different Intensities - https://youtu.be/0sUEhfbTCdA
• Photoelectric Effect: Current-Voltage of Spectral Lines, Different Frequencies, Constant Intensities - https://youtu.be/NEXhaB18eRw
• Bragg Diffraction - https://youtu.be/QdWfYS5UQn0
• Double Slit Interference - https://youtu.be/0RqEeMPEA8A
• Mass-to-Charge Ratio - https://youtu.be/hp4awL_vJwg

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List of Demonstration Experiments

Click on the links to get to:

• a list of demos most often used by physics faculty teaching introductory courses
• a list of movies and video tapes owned by the department
• A typical selection of demos and movies for Physics 5 , Physics 8 , Physics 9 , Physics 21 , Physics 101 , Physics 102 , Physics 150 , Physics 230 .

Each demo item has a brief description and some include pictures. After reviewing the description, you may order the item for your lecture from the Lecture Demonstration Lab by e-mail , making a phone call (8-8192), or going directly to the lab.

• Vectors, Statics, and Equilibrium

Moment of Inertia

Inertia and kinematics, momentum and angular momentum, work and energy, oscillations and harmonic motion, mechanical waves and sound, hydrodynamics and thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, electrostatics, capacitance and capacitors, current and resistance, magnetic field and magnetic force, electromagnetic induction, miscellaneous, vectors and statics.

• XYZ Coordinate System
• Ellipse Drawing Tool
• Vertical Force Tables
• Free Body: Equilibrium of Forces
• Meter Stick Balance
• Center of Mass: Irregular Body
• Center of Mass Demonstration--High Wire Cyclist
• Stacking Meter Sticks
• Leaning Tower
• Stability Blocks
• Torque on a nut
• Truck on a Bridge
• Friction Ladder
• Torsion Balance with Variable Moment of Inertia
• Torque and Moment of Inertia Wheel
• Stool with Dumbell, Pole
• Inclined Plane with Disk, Ring, and Ball
• Air Track: Constant Acceleration
• Monkey and Hunter
• The Projectile Motion Timer
• Feather and Coin Tube
• Galilean Relativity
• Ball and Cardboard
• Ball Drop Apparatus
• Inclined Plane with Frets
• Center of Mass: Painted Hammer
• Center of Mass: Wacky Ball
• Air Track: Newton's First Law
• Atwood's Machine
• Bathroom and Spring Scales with Weights
• Force Plate
• Tennis Ball on String
• Fast Slow String Break
• Large Spring Hanging from Ceiling
• Bicycle Wheels Held by String
• Precessing Wheelchair Wheel
• Bicycle Wheel and Stool
• The Water Pail
• The Cavendish Balance
• Rotating Turntables and Reference Frames
• Parabolic Water Surface
• Inclined Plane with Friction Blocks
• Racing Slick
• Rolling Disk with Cord
• Orrery and Earth Globe
• Air Track: Elastic and Inelastic Collisions, Fan
• Newton's Third Law--Cannon
• Third Law: Jumping off Cart
• Third Law: Water Rocket
• Third Law: Pasco Dynamics Cart
• Conservation of Momentum Using Pasco Dynamics Cart
• Educated Balls
• Basketball and Tennis Ball
• Dumbbell and Stool
• Rotating Spheres
• The Peg and the Pendulum
• Loop the Loop
• Conservation of Energy with Giant Pendulum
• Hooke's Law
• Ballistic Pendulum
• Double Inclined Plane
• Simple Harmonic Motion Rack
• Simple Pendulum
• Meter Stick Pendulum
• "Physical Pendulum" (Irregular Body)
• Circular Motion and Simple Harmonic Motion
• Air Track: Coupled Oscillators
• Coupled Simple Harmonic Oscillators
• Damped Driven Oscillator
• Wine Glass Resonance
• The Oscillating Disk
• Simple Harmonic Motion, Coupled Oscillators Using Pasco Dynamics Cart
• Tuning Forks
• Chaotic Motion
• Chladni Plates
• Bell Labs Wave Machine
• Longitudinal Wave
• Standing Wave on a String
• Ripple Tank
• Music Box Mechanism
• Bell in Evacuated Chamber
• Acoustic Interferometer
• Doppler Buzzer
• Audio Generators with Speakers
• Musical Instruments: Guitar, Cello, Clarinet, Kazoo, Glockenspiel, Organ pipes, Trumpet, Recorder
• Mac Audio Software
• Fourier Synthesizer
• Speaker as Microphone
• Dissected Speaker
• Constant Volume Thermometer
• Venturi Tubes
• Equilibrium Tubes
• Water and Mercury Manometers
• The Water Column
• Hanging Ping Pong Ball
• Cartesian Diver
• Buoyancy--Weight of Submerged Block
• Buoyancy--Density Blocks
• Falling Coffee Filters
• Aristotle Viscous Fall
• Regular and Diet Coke Cans in Water
• Surface Tension: Floating Paper Clip
• Ball and Ring with Bunsen Burner
• Bi-Metal Strip and Bunsen Burner
• Mylar Balloon and Heat Gun
• Syringe Engine
• Sample Car Piston
• Steam Engine
• Boiling Water at Reduced Pressure
• Rods, Fur, Silk, Pith Balls, Balloons and Projection Electroscope
• Electrostatic Torsion Balance Model
• Wimshurst Machine
• Van de Graaff Generator
• Faraday's Ice Pail
• Electrophorus Plate
• Electric Field Projection
• Induced Electric Field: Coke Can and Charged Rod
• Gauss's Law Models
• Electric Potential Transparency (Devil's Tower)
• Change of Capacitance with Dielectric
• Series and Parallel Capacitors
• Energy stored in Capacitors
• Charge and Discharge of a Capacitor
• Capacitor Board
• Parallel Plate Electroscope
• Electric Current Analog
• Simple Circuit
• Conduction in Gases
• Change of Resistance with Temperature
• Resistor Board
• Coke Battery
• Dissected Pencil and Ohmmeter
• Projection of B Field of a Bar Magnet
• Projection of B Field of a Current Carrying Wire
• Projection of B Field of a Solenoid
• Force on a Current Carrying Conductor or EMF on Rod Moving in Magnetic Field
• Current Loop in B Field
• Wire Loop Motor
• Force between Current Carrying Conductors
• Two Bar Magnets
• Magnet on Swivel
• Electron Beam in B Field
• Floating Superconductor
• Eddy Current Pendulum
• Lenz's Law Tube
• Lenz's Law Levitation
• Faraday's Law
• Magnetic Recording Simulation
• Jumping Ring
• Transformer Effects
• Jacob's Ladder--Corona Phenomenon
• Dissectible Transformer
• AC/DC Generator
• Short-wave Radio
• Electromagnetic Wave Model
• Slit Diffraction with Laser
• Diffraction With Mercury Source
• Hand-Held Gratings
• CD Disk Diffraction Grating
• Polarization Disks
• Blackboard Optics
• Total Internal Reflection
• Phantom Light Bulb (Real Image)
• Single Filament Bulb and Large Lens
• RF Shielding
• Radiometer and Light Bulb
• Thin Film Interference Using Soap Bubbles
• Newton's Rings
• Microwave Standing Waves
• Fiber Optical Cables
• Photoelectric Effect
• Dissected Photomultiplier Tube
• Crooke's Tube
• RL, RC Circuits
• Electron Diffraction
• Radioactive Source
• Nuclear Decay: Wooden Dice
• e/m Apparatus
• Elmo (reflection projector)

Copyright 2000 by the University of Pennsylvania Department of Physics and Astronomy. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without written consent of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Physics and Astronomy.

For more information or to schedule a lab demo contact Rich Mitchell , phone 898-8192

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Top 10 Beautiful Physics Experiments

The list below shows the top 10 most frequently mentioned experiments by readers of  Physics World .

Top 10 beautiful experiments:

• Young's double-slit experiment applied to the interference of single electrons
• Galileo's experiment on falling bodies (1600s)
• Millikan's oil-drop experiment (1910s)
• Newton's decomposition of sunlight with a prism (1665-1666)
• Young's light-interference experiment (1801)
• Cavendish's torsion-bar experiment (1798)
• Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth's circumference (3rd century BC)
• Galileo's experiments with rolling balls down inclined planes (1600s)
• Rutherford's discovery of the nucleus (1911)
• Foucault's pendulum (1851)

Others experiments that were cited included:

• Archimedes' experiment on hydrostatics
• Roemer's observations of the speed of light
• Joule's paddle-wheel heat experiments
• Reynolds's pipe flow experiment
• Mach & Salcher's acoustic shock wave
• Michelson-Morley measurement of the null effect of the ether
• Röntgen's detection of Maxwell's displacement current
• Oersted's discovery of electromagnetism
• The Braggs' X-ray diffraction of salt crystals
• Eddington's measurement of the bending of starlight
• Stern-Gerlach demonstration of space quantization
• Schrödinger's cat thought experiment
• Trinity test of nuclear chain reaction
• Wu et al.'s measurement of parity violation
• Goldhaber's study of neutrino helicity
• Feynman dipping an O-ring in water

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Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations

1 Oxford St Cambridge MA 02138 Science Center B-08A (617) 495-5824

• Key to Catalog

enter search criteria into the search box

Browse catalog.

Paraxial Ray Optics Cloaking

A new optical illusion has been added to our geometric optics repertoire: A combination of four converging lenses creates a 3D c

Vacuum Cannon

If you're feeling pressure to do something fun, consider this demo.

Electrostatic Shielding

How does shielding work? Is it a two-way street and work both ways? Can electric fields not penetrate metals?

Friction Around Pole

The topic of friction can be a little rough--consider roping students in with this demo!

Sound Reflections in Pipes

A pulse of sound gets "inverted" when reflecting off the open end of a pipe, but does not when reflecting off the closed end

Can Crusher

A surge of electrical current through a coil of wire crushes an inserted aluminum soda can.

About the Catalog

This website is an ongoing project to create a comprehensive library of physics demonstrations, simulations, videos, and other useful resources available at the Harvard Science Center. Having evolved from "The Demonstrative Physicist's Companion," a handbook begun in 1990 by W. Rueckner and S. Steel, this website goes far beyond a compilation of all the demonstrations in our current repertoire.

Included in the table of contents at the left are twelve topic sections relating to particular areas of physics, chemistry, and math. Each topic section is further divided into sub-sections in which the demonstrations are listed. You may find browsing through these sections helpful to get ideas for your lecture, but even more helpful is the ability to search the catalog with key words so that you needn't rely on our categorization or cross-referencing schemes to find what fits your needs.

It is our intention to make this site as useful as possible. Any suggestions from you, the user, are greatly appreciated. If you found a demonstration listed for which you wished there was an "in-depth" description, let us know. You can contact us by the various methods listed above.

Key to Catalog Listings

Size : from small [S] (benchtop) to extra large [XL] (most of the hall)  Setup Time : <10 min [t], 10-15 min [t+], >15 min [t++] /span> Rating : from good [★] to wow! [★★★★] or not rated [—] 

Complete key to listings

What's New

An image current is created in a ferromagnetic material in the presence of a real current.... Read more about Image Current

The difference between static and kinetic friction can cause the car to skid when braking.

If you're feeling pressure to do something fun, consider the vacuum cannon...

See slow-motion footage of the Vacuum Cannon in action (https://youtu.be/gex5Fq5oUtc)

The tension force in a rope grows exponentially with the number of turns the rope makes around a pole.

... Read more about Rope Friction Around Pole

A pulse of sound gets "inverted" when reflecting off the open end of a pipe, but does not get inverted when reflecting off the closed end.

How does shielding work? Is it a two-way street and work both ways? Can electric fields not penetrate metals? What's going on? This sequence of demonstrations addresses these questions.... Read more about Electrostatic Shielding

An empty aluminum soft drink can, placed inside a coil of wire, is made to implode when... Read more about Can Crusher - Magnetic Implosion

A 60 Hz AC magnetic flux from an iron core induces an emf in a suspended coil of wire. With appropriate capacitance added, the coil will be attracted to, repelled from, or not affected by the magnetic flux.

... Read more about Attractive and Repulsive Phases

Light, passing through heavy glass, has its direction of polarization rotated slightly if a magnetic field is applied to the glass.

10 cm microwaves are used for the demonstration of travelling and standing waves, reflection, interference, refraction, diffraction, absorption, polarization, tunneling, and waveguides.

... Read more about Microwave Properties

Simple RL and RC circuits serve as high-pass and low-pass audio frequency filters.

... Read more about Audio Filters

The experiment addresses questions like "Does color inhere in the world, or in the eye?"... Read more about Land's Retinex Theory Experiment

A new optical illusion has been added to our geometric optics repertoire: A combination of four converging lenses creates a 3D cloaking effect.

... Read more about Paraxial Ray Optics Cloaking

Observe the decay of airborne radionuclides with a Geiger counter and computer. (OK, it's not new since we've been doing the experiment for 20 years...we just neglected adding it to our list.)

... Read more about Radon's Progeny Decay

We have designed and built our own cosmic ray telescope (a.k.a. spark chamber). Unlike the old one, this one works reliably, is larger, and makes for a great demo.

Show why objects float in a prefered orientation and why one hull shape is more stable than another.

... Read more about Stability in Flotation

Water moving around a cylindrical pendulum makes the cylinder swing at the vortex shedding frequency.

... Read more about Vortex Shedding in Water

• Newtonian Mechanics
• Fluid Mechanics
• Oscillations and Waves
• Electricity and Magnetism
• Light and Optics
• Quantum Physics and Relativity
• Thermal Physics
• Condensed Matter
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Chemical Behavior of Matter
• Mathematical Topics

Mission Statement

We provide visual demonstrations for a wide variety of topics to supplement lectures in physics, chemistry, astronomy, and biology. Our lecture demonstrations have two important purposes: to increase student understanding of the concepts demonstrated, and to increase student enjoyment of class.

Natural Science Lecture Demonstrations consists of a team of physicists and chemists who develop, construct, and present demonstrations for lectures in the Science Center building. Working with members of faculty and testing our skills in machining, electronics, and dazzling imagery, we aim to clarify and enhance the scientific concepts presented in lecture with visible, memorable, and sometimes mind-blowing effects.

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• Atomic, Molecular, Optical Physics

Learning Resource Types

Experimental physics i & ii "junior lab", course description.

Junior Lab consists of two undergraduate courses in experimental physics. The course sequence is usually taken by Juniors (hence the name). Officially, the courses are called Experimental Physics I and II and are numbered 8.13 for the first half, given in the fall semester, and 8.14 for the second half, given in the …

Junior Lab consists of two undergraduate courses in experimental physics. The course sequence is usually taken by Juniors (hence the name). Officially, the courses are called Experimental Physics I and II and are numbered 8.13 for the first half, given in the fall semester, and 8.14 for the second half, given in the spring.

Each term, students do experiments on phenomena whose discoveries led to major advances in physics. In the process, they deepen their understanding of the relations between experiment and theory, mostly in atomic and nuclear physics.

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Upcoming Events

HEPL Seminar

Wednesday, November 2, 2022 3:00pm

Physics and Astrophysics Conference rooms 102/103

Speaker:  Yuqi Zhu, Yale University

Title: Toward Rydberg atom-based single-microwave-photon detection in an axion search

Abstract: The axion is a well-motivated solution to the strong charge–parity problem in quantum chromodynamics, and is also a dark matter candidate. It couples extremely weakly to standard model particles and can take on a wide range of masses; both make its direct detection challenging. The most sensitive laboratory experiments, including ADMX, CAPP, and HAYSTAC, make use of the haloscope technique based on axion-photon conversion. Owing to low-noise amplifiers, they are sensitive to microwave powers on the order of 10-24 W in the 0.5-5 GHz range. The field is working on extending axion searches out to 50 GHz (equivalent to 200 μeV) with a similar sensitivity. I will discuss our proposed scheme for Rydberg atom-based single-microwave-photon detectors in high-mass haloscope searches and show some spectroscopy results that allow us to identify relevant Rydberg states in potassium.