Reading references in the MI-textbook for 103M lab.

 

 Present 103M lab manual is written following the sequential ordering of a traditional textbook. The MI-textbook organizes the course material in a nonconventional way. It is based on 3 fundamental principles of physics. For this reason, the order of 103M differs from the order of MI-textbook. Below we list the MI-sections for each of the 103M experiments. Since in the current semester 2/3 of 303K students are using the MI-textbook, we urge both MI-students and the 103M lab TAs to preview the same MI-sections listed before each experiment. 

 

Experiment 2 Uniformly accelerated motion

Read:

·         Sec 1.5: Describing 3D world: Vectors

·         Sec 2.6: Special case: Const force. Notice that Fig 2.42-MI shows how a constant gravitational force changes the momentum of the trajectory.

In the manual,  Fig1-manual shows the motion of a mass along an incline. It is the parallel component of the force which accelerates the mass, i.e. along the incline the acceleration is given by ax=Fx/m=g sin(theta).

 

Experiment 3. Force and potential energy

Read:

·         MI-Sec 6.1 The energy principle.

·         MI-Sec 6.8 Notice that the potential energy U belongs to a pair of interacting objects.

·         MI-Sec. 6.9 Gravitational potential energy: The force which is gives rise to the potential energy is the negative gradient of U.

In this experiment the force is the magnetic force. And U is the corresponding magnetic potential function.

  

Experiment 4: Collisions in one dimensional motion.

Read:

·         MI-Sec10.1 Internal interactions in collisions

·         MI-Sec10.2 Elastic and inelastic collisions

·         MI-Sec10.3 Headon collisions of equal mass

·         MI-Sec10.4 Headon collisions of unequal mass.

Notice that in all collisions momentum is conserved, i.e. the initial and final momentum of the colliding system is the same. For elastic collisions, final kinetic energy equals to the initial kinetic energy, while  for inelastic collisions the final kinetic energy is less than the initial kinetic energy.

 

Experiment 5: Motion under a central force

Read:

·         MI-Sec 11.1 This experiment concerns the “translational angular momentum which is defined in Sec. 11.1

·         MI-Sec 11.4. The angular momentum principle. This principle relates the change of angular momentum to the presence of a torque. The force of present experiment is a central force where the toque is  absent, so the angular momentum does not change. It is a constant, which predicts “equal area in equal time”, see Fig11.14-MI.

 

Experiment 6 Mechanical oscillators

Read:

·         MI-Sec 2.5. Motion of a mass spring system.

·         MI-Sec 4-11: Analytic solution: Mass spring system

 

Experiment 7 Bernoulli’s principle. An application of work energy theorem to fluid flow.

The theoretical background for this experiment is discussed in some detail in the manual. For the benefit of students using the MI textbook, we observe that the Bernoulli’s principle given in eq(1) is an application of one of the fundamental principles covered in the textbook, the energy principle. For a derivation of the  the Bernoulli’s principle based on the energy principle please click here.

Experiment 8   Study of waves on a string.

Read:MI-Sec. 25.6

In this lab the speed of a traveling wave along a string is given by eq(2)-manual. We In general the propagation speed of the waves depend on the properties of the medium in which the waves are traveling. For instance as discussed on p170 of the MI-text, the speed of the traveling waves, referred to as the sound waves, is given by sqrt(kd/m), where k is the stiffness of the interatomic bound, d the interatomic distance and m, the atomic mass.