Virtual Measurement of e/m Lab

Interactive courseware module that addresses J.J. Thomson’s landmark experiment to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron, e/m.

Virtual Measurement of e/m Lab

Curriculum Module
Created with R2020b. Compatible with R2020b and later releases.

Description

This curriculum module contains a MATLAB® app and a live script that follow J.J. Thomson’s landmark experiment to measure the charge to mass ratio of the electron, e/m. The app is a virtual replacement for the experimental apparatus commonly used in physics laboratories. The live script contains a manual for conducting the experiment. This lab includes background, pre-lab, virtual experiment, and data analysis sections and concludes with an application of the theory to mass spectrometry.

Learning Goals

• Explain the forces present in the experimental apparatus
• Derive the physical relationships required to compute the e/m ratio
• Use the app to perform the experiment
• Estimate the value of e/m
• Compute the experimental error and discuss its sources
• Relate the underlying theory to mass spectrometry

Details

emLab.mlx, emLabSoln.mlx
A lab manual for the virtual experiment. This live script includes a background description, pre-lab questions, a guide to the virtual experiment, and details on how to process and analyze the data.

emApparatus.mlapp
A MATLAB app that contains a virtual reproduction of the experimental apparatus. Details concerning how to use the app are included in emLab.mlx.

emExpSoln.mat
Example measurements taken from the app used in the solution script, emLabSoln.mlx.

Products

MATLAB, Symbolic Math Toolbox™, Curve Fitting Toolbox™

License

The license for this module is available in the LICENSE.TXT file in this GitHub repository.

Educator Resources

• Featured Courseware
• Teach with MATLAB and Simulink
• MATLAB Grader

Have any questions or feedback? Contact the MathWorks online teaching team.

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