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Cloud Chamber

Add To Your Report

  1. Measure the length of the particle tracks in your video of the thoriated rod. Calibrate your measurements using the measured length of the thoriated tungsten rod.  You should have 20-40 track lengths – you don’t need to use every track from your video.  ImageJ is a great tool for this task.  It’s a free download.  If ImageJ won’t open your AVI, reach out to Dr. FitzGreen – you may be missing a default plugin somewhow.
  2. Make a histogram of measured track lengths.  Use a bin size that will result in 10-20 bars in your histogram.
  3. Compare that histogram with the energy spectrum of thorium (and it’s decay chain daughters). Can you make the argument that your histogram of measured track lengths is a good indication of the energy spectrum of alpha particles from Thorium decay?

License

Physics 2P03 Lab Manual Copyright © by Daniel FitzGreen. All Rights Reserved.

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