Preface .................................................... vii
1 Curiosity and research ....................................... 1
1.1 Course goals ............................................ 1
1.2 Kinds of questions ...................................... 1
1.3 Research methods for science ............................ 3
1.4 Putting methods together ............................... 15
Assignments ................................................. 15
2 Overview of experimental analysis and design ................ 18
2.1 Hypothesis-driven experiments .......................... 18
2.2 Measuring values ....................................... 30
2.3 Improving experiments .................................. 39
2.4 Safety and ethics ...................................... 43
Assignments ................................................. 48
3 Statistics .................................................. 51
3.1 Motivations for statistics ............................. 51
3.2 Reducing many numbers to few ........................... 55
3.3 Probability distributions .............................. 61
3.4 Connecting data and probability distributions .......... 70
3.5 What happens to averages as TV increases ............... 75
3.6 Central Limit Theorem .................................. 81
3.7 Comparing many experimental measurements ............... 92
3.8 Data with many values of independent variable .......... 97
3.9 Other statistical tests ............................... 105
Assignments ................................................ 105
4 Mathematical models ........................................ 112
4.1 Ingredients of mathematical modeling .................. 112
4.2 Estimation ............................................ 121
4.3 Linear regression ..................................... 125
4.4 Matching arbitrary functions to data .................. 128
4.5 Fourier transforms .................................... 133
4.6 Deterministic modeling ................................ 136
Assignments ................................................ 146
5 Scientific information ..................................... 151
5.1 Introduction .......................................... 151
5.2 Writing a proposal .................................... 151
5.3 Writing scientific papers ............................. 152
5.4 Scientific figures .................................... 161
5.5 Giving scientific presentations ....................... 166
5.6 Searching for scientific information .................. 168
5.7 Obtaining scientific articles ......................... 172
5.8 Reading scientific papers ............................. 173
5.9 Final words ........................................... 177
Assignments ................................................ 178
Appendix A Spreadsheets for basic scientific computation ..... 182
A.1 Spreadsheet programs .................................. 182
A.2 Basic program features ................................ 183
A.3 Built-in functions .................................... 189
A.4 Charts ................................................ 194
Assignments ................................................ 199
Appendix В Extract from Galileo's Two New Sciences ........... 201
Appendix С Safety in the laboratory .......................... 204
C.1 Safety contract ....................................... 204
C.2 Chemical safety forms ................................. 207
Appendix D Grading rubrics ................................... 210
D.1 Written presentation .................................. 211
D.2 Oral presentation ..................................... 222
Index ...................................................... 224
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