Thursday, 21 February 2008

STOP PRESS

As some of you might know, I've been conducting an experiment in a cave for the last couple of months. Up to this point I'be been bashing the data trying to make sense of it. I think I've got the answer.
I best explain:
Pressure (mb) is the measure of how much air is pressing down on a certain point at a certain time. Different measures of pressure relate to different weather conditions, so high pressure means the sun is gonna shine and low pressure means its gonna rain. Pressure is measured outside to help inform the weather report. So for some reason, maybe I need shooting, I came up with the idea of forecasting the weather from inside a cave. After all if Pressure can be measured outside to forecast weather, then it can be measured inside to do the same thing. The first stage of the data crunching was running a statistical test called a Pearson Correlation, this gives you a nice number, either close to +1 for a good correlation or -1 for a bad correlation. By correlation we mean how close the pressure is inside to the pressure outside or the pressure outside informs the pressure inside.
The results for December showed a correlation of 0.933645 and 0.47465 for January, I need to everything checked, but the correlation is very good, so for now at least my theory is correct, I can see a lapse rate within the data, which means that its not an instant thing, but with more time I might be able to model the pressure wave as it enters the cave, maybe. I'll keep you up-dated.

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

Some times

Some times in life, you come across somthing, that makes you stand back and say WOW. I had one of these moments today. Today was my first day back at university and as often is the case I went into the shop to get a drink, I paid with a five pound note and was given change, which went into my pocket with out being checked. When I got home later I empited my pockets and saw this.

Now what your looking at is a normal one pound coin with a pink sticker stuck to it, the pink sticker says. "WS1 Valentines Burlesque Ball, 14 feb, www.ws1nightclub.co.uk." so I typed the web address into my brower, thinking maybe it was a night club in Bath...as it turns out, it came from a nightclub in a place caled Walsall which is close to Birmingham in the Midlands. The link below shows the location of Bath and Walsall

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=Bath,+Somerset,+UK&daddr=Walsall,+UK&mra=pe&mrcr=0&sll=44.053238,-50.189711&sspn=77.140895,163.476563&ie=UTF8&ll=51.988263,-2.246704&spn=2.110953,5.108643&z=8&om=0

How amazing to think that this coin travelled so far in a short space of time. I e-mailed the night club telling them I had found there coin and asked if maybe I had won something!! What a great way to advertise!!