PHYS401 - Lab Two

Graphing Data

I have had some people asking me how to graph their data for this assignment.

I would recommend doing this using either Python (my personal preference) or R.

Graphing data in python

I would recommend using python for this.

In python, you can use the MatPlotLib¹ library, which is a relatively easy to use plotting library for python.

¹ If you feel like being very fancy, try out seaborn, its a plotting library similar to matplotlib, it is harder to use but makes nicer looking graphs.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Change these!
currents = [ 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 ]
voltages = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ]

plt.plot(
    currents, # The first argument is the "x" values
    voltages, # The second argument is the "y" values
    "b-"      # This is the line style, 
)             # "b-" means a blue solid line

# Label the Axes
plt.xlabel("Current (Amps)")
plt.ylabel("Voltage (V)")

# Display a grid
plt.grid() 
# Title the plot
plt.title("Voltage plotted against current") 

# Display the plot
plt.show() 

Graphing data in R

I am less familiar with R, but a lot of you learn it in the CST for statistics. I have been told it is very good.

# Libraries
library(ggplot2)

# create data
xValue <- 1:10
yValue <- cumsum(rnorm(10))
data <- data.frame(xValue,yValue)

# Plot
ggplot(data, aes(x=xValue, y=yValue)) +
  geom_line()