Thursday, November 24, 2016
The LUMS Physics lab, Physlab recenlty manufactured two sets of an experiment titled “Measurement of Planck’s constant using spectrum of a light bulb” for the National University of Science & Technology (NUST), Islamabad as part of the Lab’s outreach mission in sharing knowledge, technology and expertise with sister institutions across Pakistan for development of modern experimental physics laboratories. NUST is now the sixth University where the LUMS Physics lab will make its presence felt.
These setups are a beautiful blend of modern optical equipment assembled with in-house manufactured apparatus. The project, spanned over three months, reiterates LUMS commitment to foster the culture of science, in particular physics education through the use of modern technology.
The experiment uses a domestic bulb and spectral filtering to find a fundamental physical constant. The underlying principle is usage of Planck’s radiation law that marked the dawn of quantum mechanics. The temperature of the bulb is measured purely electrically and later the temperature and wavelength of the filtered light is employed to determine Planck’s constant. The experiment involves mathematical modelling, fitting of data against theoretical predictions and is a nice blend of thermodynamics, electricity and quantum physics.
The Project lead for the project is Dr. Mohammad Sabieh Anwar, faculty at the Department of Physics. He was assisted by Azeem Iqbal, Hafiz Rizwan and Khadim Husain, staff members at the Physics department.
