We present details of an experiment that improves earlier attempts to study the propagation of diffusive thermal waves inside a metal rod. In addition to technical improvements in data acquisition and heater control, the experiment physically illustrates insightful concepts in Fourier analysis. For example, the harmonic content and the differential damping of harmonics can be observed in the thermal domain, thus providing a valuable extension to the standard Fourier analysis of electric circuits.
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See supplementary material at http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.4881608 for our laboratory instructions and the LabVIEW program are available as or at the author-maintained website <http://physlab.lums.edu.pk/index.php/Experiment_in_Lab-II> (see the experiment numbered 2.3).
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2014
American Association of Physics Teachers
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