The student's companion website and the instructor manual can be accessed here.

This textbook provides the knowledge and skills needed for thorough understanding of the most important methods and ways of thinking in experimental physics. The reader learns to design, assemble, and debug apparatus, to use it to take meaningful data, and to think carefully about the story told by the data.

Key Features:

• Efficiently helps students grow into independent experimentalists through a combination of structured yet thought-provoking and challenging exercises, student-designed experiments, and guided but open-ended exploration.
• Provides solid coverage of fundamental background information, explained clearly for undergraduates, such as ground loops, optical alignment techniques, scientific communication, and data acquisition using LabVIEW, Python, or Arduino.
• Features carefully designed lab experiences to teach fundamentals, including analog electronics and low noise measurements, digital electronics, microcontrollers, FPGAs, computer interfacing, optics, vacuum techniques, and particle detection methods.
• Offers a broad range of advanced experiments for each major area of physics, from condensed matter to particle physics. Also provides clear guidance for student development of projects not included here.
• Provides a detailed Instructor's Manual for every lab, so that the instructor can confidently teach labs outside their own research area. The manual can be accessed here.

About the Author

Walter F. Smith is the Paul and Sally Bolgiano Professor of Physics at Haverford College, where he has taught the advanced lab course more than twenty times. He earned his PhD from Harvard University. He is co-author of more than 30 peer-reviewed research articles, six of which specifically focus on new experimental apparati or techniques, and maintains an active research group centered on the photoelectronic properties of organic nanowires. He is author of the textbook "Waves and Oscillations: A Prelude to Quantum Mechanics".

Reviews

"Smith (Haverford College) has edited a well-designed and beautifully crafted book for use in the advanced lab-a typical upper-level course taken by the physics major-that is refreshingly based on contemporary laboratory pedagogy. Smith has independently authored 8 of the 21 chapters and coauthored another. The authors of remaining chapters are mostly experienced laboratory faculty. The writing is generally fluid, balancing a friendly informality with precise instruction. The text begins with 5 foundational chapters addressing laboratory philosophy, communicating results, the ethics of research, uncertainty, and statistical analysis. The next 7 chapters focus on electronic technologies, data interfacing, optics, and vacuum technology. The last 8 chapters address more specific subject-matter topics (e.g., "Biophysics," "Condensed Matter Physics") but also include one on developing independent undergraduate projects. . . . this book is a substantial contribution suitable for adoption in programs that support an undergraduate upper-level physics curriculum. Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty."

- J. R. Burciaga, Colorado College, USA, in CHOICE April 2021 Vol. 58 No. 8

Book Information
ISBN 9781498778473
Author Walter Fox Smith
Format Hardback
Page Count 438
Imprint CRC Press Inc
Publisher Taylor & Francis Inc
Weight(grams) 975g