Belmont College will improve and enhance the laboratory instruction provided students in a modern physics course. The students enrolled in this course are physics majors and minors, pre-engineering majors, chemistry majors, and mathematics majors. The project will increase the number and level of sophistication of the experiments conducted in this course. Students will be given greater opportunity for "hands-on" experiences with the concepts and phenomena of modern physics. Equipment items to be purchased include an alpha/beta spectrometer, an X-ray spectrometer, and an electron spin resonance probe. Experiments that explore alpha particle energy spectra, beta particle energies, ESR phenomena, and Zeeman effect studies will be added to the course. Students will have a better understanding and appreciation of the relationship of theory and experiment. The result will be a more balanced presentation of the concepts and phenomena of modern physics.
