Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the fourth edition
- Preface to the first edition
- 1 The object of practical physics
- PART 1 STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA
- PART 2 EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
- PART 3 RECORD AND CALCULATIONS
- 10 Record of the experiment
- 11 Graphs
- 12 Arithmetic
- 13 Writing a paper
- APPENDICES
- Solutions to exercises
- Some useful books
- References
- Index
10 - Record of the experiment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the fourth edition
- Preface to the first edition
- 1 The object of practical physics
- PART 1 STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA
- PART 2 EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
- PART 3 RECORD AND CALCULATIONS
- 10 Record of the experiment
- 11 Graphs
- 12 Arithmetic
- 13 Writing a paper
- APPENDICES
- Solutions to exercises
- Some useful books
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In any experiment it is essential to keep a running record of everything that is done.
The record should be clear – and economical. On the one hand, you do not want to have to spend time subsequently searching pages of numbers without headings to find a particular set of results, or puzzling out from some meagre clues just what the conditions were when you made a certain set of measurements. On the other hand, to produce a record that is so clear that it may be followed with absolute ease by someone else is itself a time-consuming operation and is hardly necessary. You should aim at a record that you yourself will be able to interpret without too much difficulty after an interval of, say, a year.
In this chapter some suggestions for keeping the record are given. The important thing is not that you should regard them as a set of rules to be followed blindly, but rather that you should understand the spirit behind them, which is to produce a record – accurate, complete, and clear – with a minimum of effort.
Bound notebook versus loose-leaf
Some experimenters prefer a bound notebook; others use loose sheets. The advantage of a single bound book is that one knows where everything is – in the book. There are no loose bits of paper to be mislaid. The main disadvantage is that in an experiment of even moderate complexity one often goes from one part to another, and it is tiresome to have the various parts split into fragments in the record.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Practical Physics , pp. 125 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001