h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some would argue that Birmingham is, indeed, constantly full of planks

I had a Year 13 practical exam on monday. Not too bad but for a particular constant K three of us got three different results 538, 1x10-5, and 7. We'll never know who is right...

Ohhhh dear....

become a theoretician. Things like that just don't happen to them...

It's funny you should say that! We had the second part this morning, which was mainly theory, and everyone said how much better it went!

And you get to make up a theory that will fit any data!!

Sounding better all the time!

I enjoy doing the experiments when things go vaguely right. Unfortunately, this isn't a lot of the time! It'll be alright next year - Warwick promised no springs or pendulums for at least the first year! That makes it easier at least!

Oh no - no mechanics...you know what that means?



NUCLEAR


They _never_ go right...negative half-lifes, I'll never forget the guy who got negative half-lifes...

Negative half lives? Feck...

I don't know what it will be, but the woman definitely sais no measuring little g. I've never heard such a sigh of relief!

Quite how my source managed to have so little activity that there was no comment you could make about the half life, I'm not really sure... my partner's worked...

Using the same sample? Dodgy equiptment? Used orange juice by accident?

Murphys law?

It's a bit of variety from watching a spring go up and down and proving g = 7.something at least...

We had different samples of the same element. I guess mine was way way older than my partners...

Still, I managed to get an A when I wrote it up

What was the half life supposed to be?

So 'twas better to write what you had done than make it up after all?

My A-level coursework got it to be 10.8. Now I know it was a very dodgy experiment but I couldn't work out any way it should be too high. All the errors I could see should have made it much lower! Never mind eh? At least in A-level you seem to get more marks saying how you could make it work better than actually getting it right in the first place!

yep...

Ahh, the joys of computing lab!

Well I'm still convinced that the source we used in AL physics practicals was labelled wrong...it was obviously emitting gamma and alpha and no beta.

Gravitational constant varies around the world due to centrapetal force being concentrated around the equator and the fact that the equator is forther from the centre of the earth than the poles(or that was my excuse and I'm sticking to it...you might say that 11.5 is a rediculous value but its true)

Another one to avoid is viscocity experiments...when I joined up the dots on my graph it looked like a house (complete with windows and doors and a chimney)

Practical exams beat coursework any day fo the week though.

It isn't.

In my third year lab practical, we measured the presence of an underground car park using a (very sensitive) mass on a spring (in a climate controlled box, the whole kit costing £10,000.) The measurement was in terms of a few milli-gals, and the car park could be seen, with the pillars holding the roof up.

By the time you get to a stage where lab can be bothered spending more than 50p per student, the practicals do start to work. Honest.

And the people who measure it as around 9.81 m/s2 have VERY expensive equipment.

Ah, we measured it to 2.24x10^7m/s +/- 5x10^6... and everyone else who used that apparatus did too, so we got our lab books remarked back up to As from Bs, which was good.

I bet no-one can claim to have worse results for g than our A-level class we all got in the region of 16-20 which can only be explained by an unexplainable phenomenon

I've got my first labs session this afternoon. Having taken all advice into account, I won't panic...

and how did it go?