PHYSICS 244 . 
EXPERIMENT #4
 

Q. 1.    What causes the electron avalanche in a Geiger tube which
signals the presence of a charged particle, what eventually stops the
avalanche, and by what process is the tube restored for the next
incoming particle?  

 

Q.2.     Using simple circuit theory, explain why a pulse of electrons
from the Geiger tube generates the pulse on the oscilloscope
illustrated in Fig. 2.  See Fig. 1.  

 

Q.3.     Explain briefly why it is necessary to "plateau" the Geiger
counter before running our experiment.  

 

Q.4.     Compare the contrast data distributions caused by random
errors in measurement with those resulting from random physical
processes.