Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
The aim of the present work is to furnish the student with a laboratory manual of physical processes and measurements in which the explanation of the theory and the description of the method of manipulation of each experiment is so complete as to preclude the necessity of consulting either another book or a laboratory instructor. The work is so designed that it can be begun at the commencement of the second college year. In the selection of experiments the plan has been to include only such methods as are strictly scientific, that have as practical a bent as possible, and that can be depended upon to give good results in the hands of the average student. This enlists the energy of the student and saves that of the instructor.
Although the majority of the experiments are quantitative measurements, some few methods and principles which experience has found to give difficulty to the average college student have been illustrated by qualitative exercises. It has been assumed that the experiment is rare that is so important as to justify a student performing it before he understands the theory involved and the derivation of the formulae required. Consequently the theory of each experiment is given in detail and the required formula developed at length. Since, in general, a student can appreciate most completely the physical significance of the various steps in an analytical discussion when couched in terms with which he has been for some time acquainted, it has appeared desirable to use as elementary mathematical methods as possible even though brevity be thereby sometimes sacrificed.
