General Information

Counts for the physics lab requirement. Crosslisted with AEP 3630.

Prerequisites

E&M credit (PHYS 2208, PHYS 2213, or PHYS 2217)

Topics Covered

  • Resistors, capacitors, diodes
  • Operational amplifiers
  • Feedback amplifiers, oscillators, comparators
  • Passive and active filters
  • Transistor switches and amplifiers
  • Combinational and sequential logic (gates, flipflops, registers, counters, timers)
  • Analog to digital (ADC) and digital to analog (DAC) conversion
  • Signal averaging
  • Computer architecture and interfacing

Workload

A lot. Two 3 hour labs per week, with lab report and one homework assignment due every week. One midterm and a final.

General Advice

The lab manual knows all. The manual is your go-to guide for pretty much everything, and the problems at the end of each chapter help study for the prelim. It is also helpful to read the chapter before going to lab. This is hard to get around to considering how much work the class already is, but you will be much more efficient during the lab period.

Testimonials

This class is quite infamous in the physics/AEP community here at Cornell. The 6hrs/week of lab is grueling, but it is usually straightforward and Kirkland and the TA are there to help. Following the manual like a “recipe” will get you an 85% on the labs. Doing the optional experiments and doing anything “extra” will get you some more points.

Alternatives

There exist several lab alternatives to PHYS 3310, 3330, and 3360:

  • ASTRO 4410: Experimental Astronomy
  • AEP 3640: Modern Applied Physics Experimental Design
  • BEE 4500: Bioinstrumentiation

These labs allow students to undertake deeper dives into the fields of astronomy, applied physics, and biophysics respectively.

Past Offerings

Semester Professor Median Grade Syllabus
Spring 2022 Earl Kirkland   PHYS3360_SP22.pdf