Experimental sets

All materials for download are in Czech only.

1. Electrostatics

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Keywords: electric charge, electric field, plate capacitor, electric potential, voltage, capacitance.

Students usually manage to go through 4 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Electric field around a charged spherical conductor. Students measure the dependence of the electric field intensity on the charge of the sphere and on the distance from its centre.

• Experiments with simple plate capacitors. Students quantitatively verify the effect of surface area and plate distance on the capacitance of a plate capacitor. Finally, they determine the relative permittivity of the paper or glass.

• Playing with capacitors. The aim of a few simple experiments is to show the relationships between charge, voltage and capacitance of a capacitor. In addition, students determine the capacitance of different conductors including their own body.

• Electrostatics with straws. Set of simple experiments supporting conceptual understanding of electrostatic induction and dielectric polarization. Using Coulomb's law, students also estimate the charge on straws.

• How to illustrate electric field? Within the unit, students use an applet designed to model electric fields; the aim is to approximate the abstract quantities describing electric field, namely its intensity and potential.

• Construction of an electric charge indicator. Using soldering, students build a simple charge detector.

2. Oscillations and rigid body mechanics

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Keywords: oscillations, period and frequency, moment of inertia, torsion, torsional pendulum, resonance curve, resonant frequency.

Students usually manage to go through 2-3 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Moment of inertia. Students experimentally determine the moment of inertia of various bodies (from the period of oscillation on a torsion spring) and compare the results with theoretical calculations based on the geometry of the bodies.

• Oscillations on a spring. The aim of the unit is to measure the dependence of the period of a harmonic oscillator on its mass and, based on the obtained graph, to predict the mass for which the period will have a selected value.

• Resonance frequency and damped oscillations (Pohl's pendulum). The unit focuses on measuring the resonance curve of Pohl's pendulum and comparing the natural and resonant frequencies.

• Torsional oscillation. Students investigate what the period of oscillations depends on for torsion of rods with different parameters.

3. Quantum effects in microworld

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Keywords: energy of radiation, photon, energy levels in atomic shells, photoelectric effect, X-rays, Planck’s constant.

Students usually manage to go through 2-3 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Franck–Hertz experiment. Students repeat the famous historical experiment by James Franck and Gustav Hertz that confirmed the quantization of electron energies atomic shells.

• Diffraction of X-rays. The aim of the unit is to measure the dependence of X-ray intensity on its wavelength when X-rays are diffracted on a NaCl crystal and thus to show the existence of bremsstrahlung and characteristic X-rays.

• Photoelectric effect (applet). The unit uses an interactive applet to introduce students to the principles and properties of the photoelectric effect and its Einstein's explanation, which led to the idea of quantizing the radiation energy.

• Photoelectric effect. Students measure the dependence of the retarding voltage (which completely suppresses the photocurrent produced by the photoelectric effect) on the frequency of the incident radiation and use these data to determine Planck's constant.

• Determination of Planck’s constant using LEDs. A simple measurement leads to a numerical expression of Planck's constant based on an analysis of the current–voltage characteristics of different LEDs.

• Photoelectric effect with an aluminium can. The aim of the station is to demonstrate that radiation of sufficiently high energy causes the release of electrons from the surface of a negatively charged aluminum can, and thus to its discharge.

4. Magnetic field of solenoids

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Keywords: magnetic field of a straight conductor with current, magnetic field of a solenoid, magnetic field vector, magnetic properties of solids.

The design of this topic is somewhat different from the others - students experiment in three blocks, with the first two blocks being the same for all groups:

Block 1 is a purely qualitative exploration of the factors that influence the magnetic field of the coils; in doing so, students are guided by this website: Magnetic field in IPL qualitatively (in Czech only).

Block 2 is a quantitative measurement of how the magnetic field vector depends on the current through the coil, the length of the coil and the number of turns.

Block 3 consists of four units, each experimental group now focuses on just one of them. These units are:

• The specific charge of an electron. The experiment uses the curvature of an electron beam in a homogeneous magnetic field to calculate the specific charge of an electron.

• The magnetic field along the coil axis. The solenoid is only a physics model, the field inside the real coil is not homogeneous. In this unit, students measure how the magnetic field vector on the coil axis changes as a function of distance from its center.

• Magnetic core. Students investigate the influence of different core materials on the magnetic field of the electromagnet.

• DC motor. Students build an DC motor with a commutator and investigate the principle of its operation.

5. Optics – quantitative approach

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Keywords: refractive index, polarization of light, interference and diffraction of light, Malus' law, Young's experiment.

Students usually manage to go through 2-3 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Refractive index measurement. Students use a digital rangefinder to determine the refractive index of different environments and compare the values obtained with the tabulated data.

• Malus’s law. Students measure the dependence of the intensity of (un)polarized light on the angle of the plane of polarization.

• Diffraction grating. Students investigate the effect of grating parameters on the diffraction pattern and measure the grating constant of an CD.

• Young’s experiment. Students will perform a double-slit experiment, verify the wave nature of light, and derive a relationship for the distance of interference maxima.

• Polarization. Using an interactive applet, students learn about polarized light and then investigate its properties using real polarizing filters.

6. Optics – qualitative approach

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Keywords: human eye, lens, retina, farsightedness, nearsightedness, colour mixing, colour blindness.

Students usually manage to go through 3-4 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Composition of the eye. Students explore the role of the iris, ciliary muscles, and conjunctive lens in human vision and locate the blind spot on the retina.

• Defects in sharp vision. Using lenses and a laser, students investigate how rays from near and far objects combine in the healthy, farsighted and myopic eye and then correct the defects with aproppriate lenses.

• Defects in colour vision. In this unit, students work with special glasses and applets that introduce them to the way our world is seen through the eyes of a colorblind person and help them understand what causes these defects.

• Colour mixing. Students use coloured lights and a USB microscope to explore different ways of colour mixing and their uses. They also explore the function of display night mode.

• Colours of objects. Students observe how the color of light affects the perceived color of an object and infer why this is so.

7. Rotating frames of reference

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Keywords: circular motion, period, frequency, angular velocity, centripetal force.

Students usually manage to go through 3 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Centripetal force. The students' task is to measure the dependence of the magnitude of the centripetal force on the rotation frequency.

• Rotating marbles. The unit deals both experimentally and theoretically with the relations for the height to which balls of different masses placed in a rotating cuvette will rise.

• Liquid in a rotating vessel. Students take a picture of the water surface in a rotating container and then use software to analyze and describe the shape of the water surface mathematically.

• Vortices. Students explore the origin of the water and fire vortex.

8. Thermodynamics I – quantitative approach

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Keywords: ideal gas, isothermal and isochoric process, Boyle-Mariott law, Charles law, specific heat capacity.

Students usually manage to go through 3-4 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Determining the specific heat capacity of water. Students determine the specific heat capacity of water and compare the value obtained with the table.

• Comparing the specific heat capacities of water and cooking oil. The experiment consists of measuring the temperature rise over time for two simultaneously heated liquids with different specific heat capacities - water and oil.

• Calorimetry. A traditional measurement using the calorimetric equation to determine the specific heat capacity of an unknown metal.

• Verifying the Boyle-Mariotte law. Students measure the pV-dependence of an isothermal process with an ideal gas and then use the results to calculate the amount of substance of the gas under study.

• Verifying the Charles law. Students measure the pT-dependence of an isochoric process with an ideal gas and then use the results to determine the standard molar volume of the gas.

9. Thermodynamics II – qualitative approach

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Keywords: heat conducation, thermal conductivity, thermal imaging, thermal imaging camera, melting point, evaporative cooling effect, rate of evaporation.

Students usually manage to go through 3-4 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Heat conduction. Students use a thermal imaging camera to visualize heat conduction in plastic and metal, compare the thermal conductivity of different metals, and use heat conduction in two simple "magic" experiments.

• Thermography. In this unit, students use a thermal imaging camera to study the properties of thermal infrared radiation - among other things, they will investigate its reflection and transmission through various materials, temperature increase by performing mechanical work, heating by friction etc.

• Melting of crystalline substances. The unit includes experimental determination of the melting point of sodium thiosulphate pentahydrate and preparation of a cooling mixture of water, ice and salt.

• Evaporation, condensation and boiling. Students use temperature sensors and thermal imaging cameras to visualize temperature changes during evaporation of liquids and condensation of gases, they also determine the boiling point of water and its dependence on air pressure.

• How to influence the speed of evaporation. Students measure the effect that the size of a liquid's surface and vapor removal from above the surface has on the rate of evaporation.

10. Motions under gravity

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Keywords: gravitational field, gravitational acceleration, free fall, horizontal launch, ballistic launch, videoanalysis.

Students usually manage to go through 3 experimental units within one visit in the IPL.

Experimental units:

• Free fall. Students verify that free fall is a uniformly accelerated motion and use linear regression to determine the magnitude of gravitational acceleration.

• Horizontal launch (going down a slide). The students use a simple slide from which they let a ball roll down. In doing so, they measure the dependence of the ball's range on the height from which it descends and create an appropriate graph. At the end, they use this graph to hit a target at a given distance.

• Ballistic launch (video analysis). Students are provided with a tennis ball, a tripod and a camera to capture a ballistic launch of the ball. They they analyze the captured video and draw conclusions about the simpler movements that is the ballistic launch composed of.

• Ballistic launch (shooting a cannon). Students work with a projectile launcher of metal balls, they measure the dependence of the range of the balls on the angle of elevation and then use the obtained graph to hit the target at a given distance.