Re:Electron Band Structure in Germanium, My Ass
by snailmailman on Tuesday April 01, 2025 @01:56PM
(#43549681)
I had a physics class in my high school. 2014? 2015? Around then.
The teacher had us using a stopwatch on our phones. We would repeat the experiment several times and average the result, because manually doing a stopwatch was terrible- multiple samples kinda helped.
My group figured out we could get things way more accurate if we videoed the experiment in slow-motion with a phone, keeping a digital stopwatch in frame. It took an extra step of math, subtracting out the start time, but in slow motion we could be accurate to 1/120th of a second. Our results were easily the most precise in the class. Equipment can make a huge difference, and slow motion video was considerably more accurate than “Mike trying to time it right”
The teacher had us using a stopwatch on our phones. We would repeat the experiment several times and average the result, because manually doing a stopwatch was terrible- multiple samples kinda helped.
My group figured out we could get things way more accurate if we videoed the experiment in slow-motion with a phone, keeping a digital stopwatch in frame. It took an extra step of math, subtracting out the start time, but in slow motion we could be accurate to 1/120th of a second. Our results were easily the most precise in the class. Equipment can make a huge difference, and slow motion video was considerably more accurate than “Mike trying to time it right”