Field Mapping

This writeup is to give you some guidance about writing up the field-mapping lab. Here are a few helpful points.

1. The writeup should be quite short long, about 2 pages, double spaced. You can exclude the figures from your page count, particularly since the LP figures have really small type and so have to be made large.
   
   When writing this lab up, think about what you are doing is testing a model of the relationship between equipotential lines and electric field lines. How are these related both graphically and mathematically? Using your measured equipotential lines, determine the field lines by drawing them, as accurately as possible on your conducting paper. You may find it useful to photograph or scan your paper and then import it into loggerpro as an image with image analysis. You can then digitize your equipotential lines and then reprint the images on a white background.
   
   You can compare your drawn field lines to the expectations from Gauss's Law. How to the images compare to the
   1. prediction for two parallel conductors?
   2. prediction for the point charge in the square
   3. prediction for the circle and short line
2. Be sure that you include relevant images in your writeup, as well as the original conduction paper that you marked up in the lab.
3. As usual, your writeup should have 4 parts:
   • Background: What model are you testing here? What experiments would you do to test this model? Discuss applications of the model. Be sure to reference your sources.
   • Experimental description: materials, protocol - enough detail for someone to repeat your experiment.
   • Results: Describe your observations, include data either in tabular, graphical, or image form, in a way that clearly displays what you have measured. Important: Include scanned copies of your original data sheets. If there are problems here, talk to me on Tuesday.
   • Discussion. What aspects of the model were tested in each section? What were the results, agreement or disagreement? Expand on this, make the logical argument that the model is supported. If the model is not supported, then why? Be specifc. What experimental factors led to an apparent falsification of the model. Be quantitative here, as much as is possible.