Rubidium magnetometer. (Image by Sarah Hansen at MIT OpenCourseWare.)
Instructor(s)
Physics Department Faculty, Lecturers, and Technical Staff
MIT Course Number
8.13-14
As Taught In
Fall 2016 - Spring 2017
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Educator Features
Course Highlights
In this lab-based course, students develop and refine their science communication skills by writing papers in the style of Physical Review Letters and making professional-level oral presentations. Faculty collaborate with communication instructors to support students in developing these professional competencies, and their reflections about teaching the course may be found in the Instructor Insights section of this course site. Insights from students, teaching assistants, and an editor of Physical Review Letters are also available in this section.
Course Description
Junior Lab consists of two undergraduate courses in experimental physics. The course sequence is usually taken by Juniors (hence the name). Officially, the courses are called Experimental Physics I and II and are numbered 8.13 for the first half, given in the fall semester, and 8.14 for the second half, given in the spring.
Each term, students do experiments on phenomena whose discoveries led to major advances in physics. In the process, they deepen their understanding of the relations between experiment and theory, mostly in atomic and nuclear physics.
