Physics307L:People/Cordova/Matt's Balmer Series Lab Summary

My partner for this lab was Sebastian The notebook for this lab can be found here.

=Purpose= =Safety= =Equipment= =Set Up=
 * Obtain the physical quantity known as the Rydberg constant through the measurement of spectral lines produced by hydrogen gas in an excited state.
 * The tubes are made of glass, and they should be handled with care.
 * Glass tubes can get hot after even minimal use. Use caution when handling immediately after use.
 * Spectrometer - Adam Hilger; London, England; Serial: 12610
 * Spectrum Tube Power Supply - Model: SP200 (5000V;10mA; Electro-Technic Products)
 * Mercury Tube
 * Hydrogen Tube
 * Deuterium Tube
 * Place spectrometer and lamp on a sturdy, flat surface.
 * Elevate the lamp to the point where the thinner part of the glass tube (while placed in the lamp) is level with the eye sight of the spectrometer. We used a stack of books.
 * Fiddle with spectrometer until you obtain desirable cross hair position and preferred slit width.
 * Note: A thinner slit yields more accurate results, but sacrifices visibility.

=Results=

With our data, the results came out to be The accepted values for these constants are given in the Google doc, and are Our result for $$R_{hydrogen}$$ is within 2 SEM. Our result for $$R_{deuterium}$$ is within 11 SEM.
 * $$ R_{calc Hydrogen} = (10976969 +/- 7304)m^{-1}$$
 * $$ R_{calc Deuterium} = (10989761 +/- 1736)m^{-1}$$
 * $$R_{hydrogen}=10967758.3406 m^{-1}$$
 * $$R_{deuterium}=10970746.1986 m^{-1}$$