1
00:00:05,220 --> 00:00:08,160
Well, one of the main
challenges that students coming

2
00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:10,680
into this class are
facing is that for many

3
00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:13,110
of them, the last time they
did an experiment in a physics

4
00:00:13,110 --> 00:00:16,470
class may have been a
high school class where

5
00:00:16,470 --> 00:00:20,600
the experiments were set up to
in a certain sense, just work.

6
00:00:20,600 --> 00:00:23,190
So they could push the
button and get the data

7
00:00:23,190 --> 00:00:26,340
and then learn something about
whatever the piece of physics

8
00:00:26,340 --> 00:00:28,800
that was being studied,
whether it was colliding two

9
00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:31,050
carts to learn about
conservation of momentum,

10
00:00:31,050 --> 00:00:34,530
or swinging a pendulum to learn
about harmonic oscillators,

11
00:00:34,530 --> 00:00:36,300
something like that.

12
00:00:36,300 --> 00:00:38,760
Usually, the instructor
who taught them

13
00:00:38,760 --> 00:00:40,860
that experiment set
it up in such a way

14
00:00:40,860 --> 00:00:42,780
that the experiments
were themselves

15
00:00:42,780 --> 00:00:44,660
were not the challenge.

16
00:00:44,660 --> 00:00:46,890
It was learning the physics.

17
00:00:46,890 --> 00:00:50,040
By the time students get to
their third year of the physics

18
00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:53,070
major, they really know
an extraordinary amount

19
00:00:53,070 --> 00:00:54,270
of physics.

20
00:00:54,270 --> 00:00:56,520
And that is really
a secondary goal

21
00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:58,332
of what we're teaching here.

22
00:00:58,332 --> 00:01:00,654
Junior Lab is really about
the professional development

23
00:01:00,654 --> 00:01:02,820
of the student as a scientist,
and that means things

24
00:01:02,820 --> 00:01:07,884
like approaching a
difficult piece of apparatus

25
00:01:07,884 --> 00:01:09,300
with an attitude
that you're going

26
00:01:09,300 --> 00:01:11,610
to be able to get it
done, understanding

27
00:01:11,610 --> 00:01:15,120
that anything you try is not
going to work the first time.

28
00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:18,060
You're going to
have to debug it.

29
00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:21,780
It's about keeping very careful
records of what you've done,

30
00:01:21,780 --> 00:01:24,090
so that when you have to
go back and repeat it,

31
00:01:24,090 --> 00:01:27,480
you can see what you've done.

32
00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:30,330
There's a large number of
things that sort of add up to,

33
00:01:30,330 --> 00:01:31,860
this is the way a
professional does

34
00:01:31,860 --> 00:01:35,610
it, which is different than
almost anything they've

35
00:01:35,610 --> 00:01:39,810
done previously in their
career as a physics student.

36
00:01:39,810 --> 00:01:41,970
So one of the
great challenges is

37
00:01:41,970 --> 00:01:44,240
if they think they know
how to do experiments,

38
00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:46,740
they may have learned it in a
way that was a little bit more

39
00:01:46,740 --> 00:01:49,260
of a novice approach before.

40
00:01:49,260 --> 00:01:51,810
So there may be some
things they have to unlearn

41
00:01:51,810 --> 00:01:54,049
before even getting started.

42
00:01:54,049 --> 00:01:56,340
And we spend about the first
month of the class working

43
00:01:56,340 --> 00:01:58,430
on things like that.