Project Conclusion

Well, this is the final post related to my Calculus Project. Our dear teacher asked us to answer the next questions:

What do you think is the most important thing you learned through this WebQuest?
I think the most important thing was to use Calculus for solving real problems like murders. Before the project, I thought that only forensic specialists could determine the time of death and that sophisticated tools were used, but now I know that with just a thermometer and Calculus such problems can be solved.

Would you recommend the use of a WebQuest to learn Mathematics or some other Science subject? Why?
Yes, I would recommend it. Webquest is an excellent guide for doing activities or experiments and learning from them at the same time, and it would work perfectly with subjects such as Physics and Biology.

What can your teacher do to improve the project? Any suggestions?
Personally, I think our teacher Linda did very well. I don't have suggestions because everything was perfect.

CENEVAL

(Sorry, I really took my time for finally writing this)

Our dear teacher asked us last week to share how we felt during our CENEVAL exam and what we think about it, and I have to say that it was harder than I thought. Only few questions from a review I did were in the exam, so most things were kind of new for me. This doesn't mean I didn't know the answers though. I think I got around 30 questions wrong maximum, and I think that would be like a 70 =(

How did I feel? Bad. I didn't notice it during the exam, but quite after I felt tired and I got sick during afternoon, I'm serious (I got flu and coughs), I even sneezed 3 times while doing the exam!

Gant Chart

Here is the Chart of the team -Retro Vintage-. (Right now I'm asking myself why it is pink...)

Newton's Law of Cooling

Wow, we can say that Newton is quite everywhere now. First we knew about him in Physics, now in Calculus. I wonder which other laws he made besides the laws of Gravity and of Cooling.

Anyways, here are my answers to some questions regarding this Law of Cooling, which we will use in the future for solving a murder case:

1. What is the Newton’s Law of Cooling?
"The rate of change in the temperature of an object is proportional to the difference between the object's temperature and the temperature of the surrounding environment". This is basically Newton's Law of Cooling. With this, Newton says that eventually, the temperature of an specific object and the temperature of the environment will eventually become equal.

2. What variables in your problem correspond with the variables in the Newton’s Law of Cooling?
Object variables:
t1: 9:10 PM(time of death of professor H)
t2: 9:16 PM (time when professor H's body temperature was at 95 degrees)
y1: 96 degrees (Professor H's body temperature)
y2: 95 degrees (Professor H's body temperature after 6 minutes)

Environment variables:
t1: 8:00 PM (time when the library was at 75 degrees)
t2: 9:00 PM (time when the library was at 70 degrees)
y1: 75 degrees (Library temperature at 9:00 PM)
y2: 70 degrees (Library temperature at 9:00 PM)

3. According to this Law, at what time approximately the death happened?
It occurred approximately between 8:50 PM and 8:55 PM. This is just an estimation, further investigation is required for determining the exact time of death

4. How does the room temperature affect the time of death?
Since the temperature of the object will become equal to the environment's temperature, we can deduce the the approximated time of dead depending on the next cases:
1. If the body temperature is considerably higher than the environment temperature, we can deduce that the time of death occurred during the last minutes
2. If the body temperature is close to the environment temperature, we can deduce that the time of death occurred time ago, ranging from hours to even days.

5. How does an illness (e.g. fever) affect the time of death?
Illness give the body abnormal temperature, generally higher temperatures. This affects the experts during the investigation of time of death because it will take more time for the body temperature to become equal to the environment temperature. For example, if the body is found with higher temperature than the environment's, then it wold appear that the body just died, but maybe the victim had fever and died hours ago, and it took more time to his body to balance with the environment temperature.

6. How exact is the approximation of the Newton’s Law of Cooling for predicting the time of death?
It's superbly exact. with Newton's Law of Cooling is possible to find almost the exact time of death of a person. If the calculation of the time of death is elaborated manually or with an standard calculator, the result may have maximum a 2% of error.

Final Proyect Team

Today I am revealing the Team I am a member of. I am a member of Retro Vintage: a team that is part of a secret association that studies and solves murders: The Forensic Science Association (FSA). The FSA hasn't assigned us a case yet, but we received a notification which says that they will send us a case that requires a team of experts of the highest grades (our team) for solving it.

Here are the members of this team and where you can contact them:

Fátima Martínez – The Journalist
http://fatimartinez.blogspot.com/

Alexandra Villarreal – Forensic scientist
http://alevillarreal.blogspot.com/

Sayda Contreras – The Media Expert
saydaacoontreeraas.blogspot.com/

David Juárez – The Math Expert
http://davidcalculus.blogspot.com/



And for those who don't know what Forensic Science is or what it does, I will answer the next questions for you:

1. What is Forensic Science?

"Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system in relation to a crime or to a civil action" (Wikipedia)

2. What kind of evidence can be collected in a murder case?

All kinds of evidence: from physical evidence like like bullet shells, bones or blood; to abstract evidence like temperature or the position of the victim. An expert at Forensic Science can find clues even in the temperature a dead body.

3. Why is important to determine the time of death?

Because we will know when exactly the crime happened, and this will determine which actions the authorities can take. For example, if the crime was committed hours ago, for example, the authorities could search for the criminal. But if it happened 2 or 5 days ago, the most probably is that the criminal had already left the city and the authorities could inform other cities about a fugitive criminal.

4. What methods are commonly used to find the time of death?
Many methods are used, like the application of Newton's Law of Cooling, the study of the decomposition state of the dead body,

5. What factors are considered in Algor Mortis?
The initial temperature of the dead body, the ambient temperature and external factors like the illumination and humidity of the place.

6. How does the environment affect the time of death?
The environment can affect the time of death in 2 ways:
a. If the environment has conditions that preserve the body, the body will remain intact fro some more hours or days, thus making the upcoming methods for determining the time of death inaccurate.
b. On the other hand, if the environment has conditions or elements that deteriorate the body (sand, streaming water, fire, etc.), it will affect the body so the investigators won't be able to determine precisely its time of death.

7. What can you tell about the different methods of temperature reading of the body? Do they make a difference in the results?
Yes, because the processes are different and have different focuses.

Goal of this Final Project

I think the goal is, besides learning about Newton's Law of Cooling and how to apply it, to learn how we can solve forensic cases with Calculus, and how we can apply Calculus in many things like Marketing, Forensic Science, Production and even at home.

Exam of Doom

I did the Integral Calculus Exam last Monday, and I did terribly. My grade was 59. I acutally was expecting a 78 considering that I did all the problems correctly (I couldn't answer like 3 excercises), but some minor mistakes and 1 exercise I did completely wrong lowered my grade.

I am surprised with this grade too, becasue I did very well in homeworks. I guess I should practice more, especially those sign mistakes.

And to make things wrong, I already having problems with the excercises of this 2nd partial.

Murder

I just read what the Final Project will be, and I have to say that it's really interesting what we will have to do. With this project we will find another use of Calculus, as we already know that we can use Calculus for finding the cost, revenue and profit of producing and selling products. Who would have thought that all those weird formulas would help in the investigation of a crime?

And although we still don't have to start this project and I haven't even researched about "Newton's Law of Cooling", I want to guess who will be the culprit of the crime, and I say it will be Peter, the student. Maybe he is the least suspect in this investigation, but we never know, don't we? Sometimes the guilty results to be the least unexpected person.

I am writing this so I will check this post after 3 months and after finishing this project and see how far (or close) I was from the truth.

Save the Muscipula

Although I doubt it's something new, I want to share this notice with you:

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/flytrap/

THE VENUS FLYTRAPS ARE DYING!

Read the article for learning how you can contribute to the preservation of these amazing, unique, insect-hunter plants.

Do you really want to see this little hunter dead?





Help them, or they will eat you













(Munch, Munch, Munch)

Cloverfield

I just saw the movie "Cloverfield" 5 hours ago, and I have to say that is one of the best movies I have seen. The film is unique because you can actually feel that you are next to the actors and it transmits the fear they feel (or at least I felt it during the movie). This was possible because the entire movie was actually a record from a Videocamera that a person hold while he ran trough the city and buildings.

The only thing I didn't like is that the origin of the monster is never explained, but this can only mean that second part may be released in the future where everything could be explained, and I am looking forward to watch it.

I really recommend it. Now go to watch it!

3rd Week

This is my third weekly post. I actually don't have too much to say since everything is going similarly to past week: I understand this stuff, I don't understand that; nothing new.

At Calculus class we continue learning about Integrals and, fortunately, they are still easy to understand. However, now I'm having trouble with Physics and the Temperature problems.
If something new happens I will either edit this post or make another.

By the way, I still don't get a new photo of mine, that's why I have that strange guy in my avatar.

Calculus Week 2

Well, today is Thursday and I had the last Calclulus class of the week, but guess what? I barely REMEMBER ANYTHING!! The Calculus lessons are apparently easy to understand at class, but once I get to do my homework, I find out that I don't know a thing about it (well, maybe I remember 1 thing or 2)

I thing that I almost completely understand are Integrals, and I guess I'm not the only one who understand it very well since we studied differentials last semester. However, I still have problems with the profit, cost and revenue problems.

Introduction

Hi, I'm David Juarez and this is my Integral Calculus Blog. Here I will (try) to post all what I learn in class and write about curious stuff that may happend during classes too.


Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think this is completely true because when we stop of caring of what is important to us, our lives lose sense and we could consider it dead.

And, by the way, I think that the purpose if this blog is to help ourselves in learning Integral Calclulus by writing here what I don'understand from the class and by writing the feedbacks of what I learn in class (I was told that is easier to learn when you write than when you read)