Tag: model building
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Spinlab Best Practices

This collection of information was on an internal facing wiki page for the group, but I was recently asked to share it with the outside world. There is very little original information here but this post does in one place collect useful insights from others who are much more experienced…
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The VOLVO Rule: When troubleshooting, turn only ONE knob at a time!

Notes from the lecture: 9., 10., & 11. – see this post on producing scientific diagrams. 12a. Model of Measurement System: 12b. Model of Physical System: 12c. Cartoon Game – I hand draw a cartoon schematic for every experiment which captures just the essential aspects of the measurement (knob &…
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Producing Scientific Diagrams Which Reveal the Relevant Scale @EdwardTufte

Learning how to produce informative and detailed graphical representations of the equipment used for experiments is a critical skill that takes practice and requires detailed knowledge of what is truly important about each component of the apparatus. For the Single Atom Microscope (SAM) project, we designed and assembled a prototype…
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R.W. Hamming On Creativity

In 1995, R. W. Hamming taught a course at the Naval Postgraduate School titled “The Art of Doing Science and Engineering.” The textbook is here and the lectures are here. My notes on his “Creativity” lecture are below: Compare to: This talk is worth comparing and contrasting with Gallagher’s Shannon lecture. Remarkably,…
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Kristen’s Guide to Success in Spinlab

Spinlab group alumna Kristen Parzuchowski (MSU ’17, now 1st year graduate student at UC-Boulder now) has written an informal “guide to success in Spinlab.” This document has started to take on a life of its own and has been requested several times since she passed it along to the group.…
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Lectures for PHY 451 Advanced Lab

Based on Teaching Students How to Model, I am revising the lectures for the Advanced Lab class (PHY 451). Day 1: Lectures 1 & 2: Modeling Framework Lectures 3, 4, 5: Data Analysis Potpourri Lecture 6: Estimating & Order of Magnitude Physics Lecture 7,8,9: Communication (Argumentation, PRL-style paper, APS-style talk) Lecture 10: Two-level…
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Teaching Students How to Model

Heather Lewandowski of the University of Colorado, Boulder presented a Colloquium today about her group’s Physics Education Research titled “Engaging Students in Authentic Scientific Practices in Physics Lab Courses.” Her talk focused on how to teach students about models and modeling: which is just one of the four learning goals (modeling,…


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