Dog Age in Human Years … Not times 7

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Kennel Club (AKC) used a recent study (See post below) which compared  dog and human DNA for signs of aging to devise a new way of calculating your dog’s age in human years. (See the chart below.)

Kennel Club dog age in human years link

Have to go! My little dog Sasha is waiting for her walk. She is a 10-year-old mini-Schnauzer.

Sasha’s Age in Human Years:

x 7 rule = 70 yrs

 

Kennel Club Chart = 56 years 

 

Formula (below) = 68 years 

I think I’ll tell Sasha she is only 56 years old in Human Years!!!!!!! She’ll be happy with that.

Dog Age in Human Years … Forget the FANCY FORMULA

Scientists have compared dog and human DNA for signs of aging to devise a more accurate way of calculating DOG AGE in HUMAN YEARS.

A Vetmed article How to Convert Dog Years to Human Years gives research details.

The researchers provide a graph and a formula:

Original study pdf

ERROR 1

The formula does not work for a dog below the age of 1 year.

The results are ridiculous in the early weeks and extreme in the first year.

 The times 7 rule:

 

Human yrs 1 yr old dog = 7 years

 

Formula:

 

Human yrs 1 yr old dog = 31 years

 

Even if you are not familiar with the Natural Log … ln … you can plug the numbers into the Google Calculator to get the answer.

ERROR 2

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Kennel Club (AKC) use the same study to devise a Dog Age in Human Years chart, which doesn’t force a formula onto the results. Here is a graph using their chart numbers.

Kennel Club Dog age in human years link

Compare a dog at 1 Year:

 

Formula Human AGE = 31 yrs

 

Kennel Club Human Age = 15 years      (12 years for large dogs)

The researchers just made the human ages for dogs fit the formula. The formula is not accurate. It just looks smart!!!!!

Radar Math: Find a Ghost Ship

The Ghost Ship, Lyubov Orlova, disappeared on 4 FEB, 2013 while being towed off the coast of Canada. After 11 years it has not been seen again but it could still be out there adrift, somewhere. The 1,500-tonne 110-passenger Russian vessel is drifting somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Missing, Richard Fisher, New Scientist, 5 Oct 2013

The Lydbov ORLOVA in action. 

The Lydbov ORLOVA as a Ghost Ship.

Despite 2 separate SOS broadcasts from Orlova life rafts in March,

it has not been found. These SOS signals are the last two ‘sightings’ shown on the map (below),

but an aerial search did not find the GHOST  SHIP.

Map from quofataferant.com

The Problem:

Ghost ships, pirates and illegal fishing vessels do not want to be found. They do not give off radio signals or identify themselves in any way to other vessels. Ghosts ships, in particular, are dangerous because other ships can crash into them at night. Seven ghosts ships have been found since 2000 including an 80m tanker off the coast of Australia. 

GPS is not always accurate. (Scroll down to see error chart: 10. Design Cool Techno Stuff )

Ships must use radar to get instant readings of other vessels in the shipping lane. Can you find a GHOST SHIP Mathspiggies?

 

Radar BASICS:

Radar, short for “Radio Detection And Ranging”, sends out short pulse microwave beams that either focus on a narrow area (eg. speed cameras) or scan an entire semi-circular dome (eg War ships). Radar measures the angle and time taken of the reflected echo. This gives the location and altitude (distance and angle) of the airplane or ship.

It is used to detect the location, speed and direction of weather fronts, cars, airplanes, ships and more.

The weather radar beam is typically reaches about 322km or 200 miles. Here is the current radar map produced by the Bureau of Meteorology at the Terry Hills unit north of Sydney (pictured below)

 

Bureau of Met RADAR
with protective dome

 

The Doppler Effect is used to calculate the speed of the ship. Every kid knows the Doppler Effect. eg.  sound of a racing car turning a corner. High pitch approaching, low pitch leaving as sound waves are shorted on approach and lengthened on departure. Today Doppler Radar is automated. This was not possible before computers. eg. World War 2

The Maths:

You are going to do some World War II Radar Operator maths.

To do RADAR MATHS you must THINK HARD and picture what is happening in your mind. All you see on the screen at any one time is YOUR SHIP’S POSITION (in the middle) and a BLIP showing the GHOST SHIP’S POSTION as the microwave beam scans the ocean.

You mark the GHOST SHIP POSITION on screen  and then do these calculations. But remember this …every time you see a blip you have moved too.

 

Now we’re going to look at the sort of calculation needed if ships we’re heading on a collision course. You will find all the GHOST SHIP DATA under the RADAR screen (below).

 

Death by Chocolate for real if this egg fell on you!

According to The Guinness Book of Records the largest chocolate Easter Egg is still the one that went on display at Le Acciaierie Shopping Centre, in Cortenuova, Italy, in 2011.

 Egg Weight   = 7,200 kg  = 15,873 lbs = 7.9 US ton

Height = 10 m =  34 ft

Circumference = 19.6 m = 64 ft

The sugar content for easter eggs is: 55-65% by weight

So we will assume the sugar content of the giant egg was in the middle:

60%

The weight of sugar in the giant egg equals:

UNBELIEVABLE BELIEFS: Why YOU Need Math(s) today

The WEB is awash with superstition, Fake News, Scams, and Marketing. How can you avoid being taken in by this PROPAGANDA?

Let the FORCE BE WITH YOU. And that FORCE IS MATH(S).

Maths is not just about doing calculations.

You may not become a mathematician, scientist, engineer, computer programmer or medical researcher, but you need to understand what they are saying.

Maths has become academically sidelined in AUSTRALIA, pushed into a Nerd Ghetto with the decline in both student skills (Maths Australia) and No. of students doing  advanced maths. (Engineers Australia. See graph below)

Meanwhile, if you can quote some Yeats, despite living in ignorance of Exponential Functions, say, you rank as an intellectual.

 Don’t bother your pretty little head with mathematics you won’t need it.

3  Reasons why YOU need maths today 

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1. Maths is a Precision Thinking tool.

You cannot claim to have an ‘agile mind’ if you are not trained to use the precision thinking tool of mathematics. Your powers of reason will be restricted.

According to the National Eating Disorders Collaboration  1 million Australians are affected by eating disorders each year. Meanwhile, women’s magazines push unrealistic images of women’s bodies by stretching models’ legs using photoshop. So what? Now do the maths.

Models legs are stretched by, up to, 89% in magazine photographs. 89%. That number will change the way you think about this issue. (See How Women’s Magazines Distort Women’s Bodies)

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2. Maths Slays Superstition.

Science alone cannot counter false beliefs, superstition or black magic.

The scientific method depends on maths via observation, measurement, calculation, proof and then replication.

Miracles, on the other hand, cannot be replicated. Without maths science becomes just another belief system. No argument can counter belief as it becomes trapped in the ‘My belief system is better than your belief system’ argument loop.

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The Enlightenment of the mid-1600s gave birth to the Scientific Method thanks to the work of scientists such as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) , Isaac Newton (1643–1727) and John Locke(1632–1704). Galileo ought to be included. In 1610 he discovered 4 moons of Jupiter, measured the period of orbit of each moon and concluded that the earth was not the centre of the universe. This contradicted belief systems of the time. The religious rulers declared him a heretic, forced him to recant and held him under house arrest until his death.

But the bishops could not arrest mathematics.

And Galileo’s scientific observations ‘proved’ to be correct again and again but he was not accurate on all matters. He thought the moons’ orbits were circular not elliptical.

Like Galileo, Science is not always correct. Nevertheless, it is all we have to fight the dark arts. The poet, John Donne (1573-1631), jested about the ‘New Philosophy’ of science at the time:

(The) new Philosophy calls all in doubt,
The Element of fire is quite put out;
The Sun is lost, and th’earth, and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
John Donne

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.

Scientific proof slays the ‘mythical dragon’ of belief and new beliefs are popping up all the time. Have you heard the latest about super foods? 

We’ll all be super humans soon. Won’t we? And some diet foods burn fat. Great! We’ll all be super-slim super-humans. Wow! Now keep reading.

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Question the numbers thrown at you. They may be fake. 

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3. Math(s) Kills Spin

You also need maths today, more than ever, to counter SPIN, MARKETING and all sorts of PROFIT DRIVEN PROPAGNDA. Trust no one could be your mantra. Banks will send you credit card bills including a minimum monthly payment, which, as some victims have discovered, wouldn’t pay off your credit card debt before you DIED.

Pharmaceutical companies sell drugs with an efficacy of a piddling 5% above the placebo. (I’ve interviewed members of Australia’s drug regulator, TGA.) 5%! You may as well give yourself sugar pills. That’ll save money and they’ll work too. The placebo effect works even if you know it’s a placebo.

Social Scientists use Mickey Mouse Maths to lobby governments for funding for, possibly, non-existent problems. Here’s one example. ‘The Productivity Commission estimates that workplace bullying costs the economy between $6billion and $36bn every year.‘ (Gary Johns, Bullied in the Workplace? Blame the Boss, The Australian, 31 Dec 2013) Really? The total funding for public hospitals in Australia in 2013 was $14bn. Curious.

Now let’s have a closer look at this estimate.

Neither sophisticated nor trained in the specific use of complicated mathematical weapons, I’m not the James Bond of maths. I’m more a ‘Jason Bourne’ type mathematician. I use the everyday maths I have at hand. I keep it simple and, wherever possible, I use first principles.

The mid-point of the Productivity Commission estimate is $21bn. So the cost of bullying in Australia including uncertainty is:

$21 ± 15bn  or  $21bn ± 71%.

These numbers are a joke. The Productivity Commission is using estimates that involve a 142% error range. Yet, I suspect even as I write, someone somewhere is using these stats to apply for a study grant or an intervention program. This type of Mickey Mouse Maths costs us money!!!! We, the public, pay firstly for these numbers to be ‘calculated’ then we pay for intervention programs to curb these ‘imaginary numbers’. Bullying in the workplace exists. But these numbers are beyond belief.

Social Scientists are not the only professionals to use bad Maths. What do you call scientists, who use maths they do not understand? Are they misinformed fools or fraudsters? On an amusing level, I’ve asked several meteorologists what ‘20% chance of rain’ actually means. (Hopefully, some reader will inform us.) Is it related to the area or duration of rain? Or both? They didn’t know. So I then asked ‘How do you calculate this probability?’ The answer? ‘The computer does it for us.’ Ladies and gentlemen, the weather is brought to you today by Clueless & Clueless.

On a more sinister level, scientists who do not understand the maths they use can be dangerous. This is the point where Science and journalism diverge mathematically. Scientists must put numbers on the board. To win hearts and minds (while over-working well-worn clichés), journalists must tell the story of one person. Here is the story of Sally Clark. On 9 November 1998 at Chester Crown Court Sally Clark, a Cheshire solicitor was convicted of smothering her two baby boys. The prosecution used  Prof Roy Meadows, who’d discovered Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, as an expert witness. He testified that the chance of two children from an affluent family suffering SIDS was 1 in 73 million. Sally Clark was found guilty. The problem was the Prof got the maths wrong. He arrived at this number by squaring 1 in 8500, the likelihood of one cot death in similar circumstances. He assumed the events were independent like flipping a coin.

The chance of 2 Heads in 2 coin flips is:

½ x ½= ¼

Two cot deaths in one family are not independent events. A Cot Death gene, for instance, would dramatically increase the likelihood of multiple Cot Deaths in one family. Sally Clarke spent 3 years in jail. Protests from the Royal Statistical Society followed. Prof Meadows was struck off the medical registrar in 2005. Sally Clark died of acute alcohol poisoning in her home in 2007. ( See Conviction by Maths Error)

The big question is ‘WHY DIDN’T HER DEFENCE LAWYERS QUESTION THE MATHS?’

OH, I forgot. Lawyers don’t have to do maths. But the bigger problem today is that young and old alike just can’t be bothered. I’m not talking about complicated math(s). 

Spend $5 and hand over a $20 bill and a check out employ needs the cash register to work out the answer. 

After all, Mickey Mouse math(s) costs us money and bad math(s) can kill. 

You’ve been warned!

MAY THE MATH(S) FORCE BE WITH YOU, LUKE!

Happy Pi Day …. but only in America!

In Australia we don’t get too carried away with 14 March aka Pi Day aka 3.14.24 because, unlike Americans,  we do not write the date as 3/14/24. We prefer 14/3/24.

No problem.

But in Europe π is not pronounced ‘pi’ It’s PEE! This makes many Happy π Day Greetings hilarious. What would a German think of  these π Day Greetings?

Did the Cat ‘pi’ in his hat?

WARNING: DO NOT DRINK FROM THIS MUG!

That’s because of the beer.

One whole day dedicated to pi.

It’s epic!

Mathematicians in love .., awwww!

So cute or they’re pissed.

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OK. ‘I 8 sum pi’ but adding the ‘delicous’ makes this weird for a German. D’Oh!

Very expensive bottle of pi.

Mmmm! Pecan pi.

Rabbit Pi must be a problem.

Dessert wine, maybe?

That’s, like, every day after a night out on the ‘piss’ as we so delicately call it in Australia.

You too can have tasty pi. I don’t know how and frankly, I don’t want to know.

The Hunger Games SURVIVAL Maths

The Hunger Games Trilogy is on the 2024 reading list for Middle School English in Australia along with classics such as Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mocking Bird.

But the HUNGER GAMES is about MATHS too. The Hunger Games provides a good introduction to PROBABILITY.

In Suzanne Collin’s book, The Hunger Games, 12 districts in the land of Panem are suppressed and controlled by a vicious elite, who dress like neon-coloured French courtesans.

Each year the cruel rulers select one teen of each sex between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district to become tributes, who must fight to the death in a televised, sponsor-supported media event called The Hunger Games, set in a staged wilderness.

Only one tribute can survive. Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark from the poor coal-mining District 12 are the local tributes for that year and must play at being star-crossed lovers to gain sponsor support and survive.

We will assume that there are 1,000 male teens and 1,000 female teens in each district and an equal distribution – rounded off – for each age group to 1000/7 = 143 male teens and female teens in each age group.

The Middle School Math Q that broke ALGEBRA!

The following Q was given to a Year 9 student as an EXTENTION EXERCISE.

Year 9!

The trouble with this algebra problem is it is soooooo tedious. Half-way through the calculations you start to lose the will to live.

Mid-calculation MATHPIG found herself confused like the chicken above. She kept going round in circles.

So Mathspig called in her friend Roger to solve the problem.

 

Thanks, Roger.

Meanwhile, IN THE REAL WORLD…

No YEAR 9 STUDENT will ever use ALGEBRA to work out their FAMILY GIFT LIST. 

For some REAL WORLD FUN with Algebra go to post below or here.

Best Ever Fun with Algebra

We all know about gravity. We worry about gravity.

GRAVITY CHALLENGE

If someone holds a pen in your hand like the gif below, then drops it,

I bet, if you keep your hand in the one position, that you can’t grab it!!!!

The maths is soooo beautiful.

All objects and bodies drop at the same rate of acceleration, g = 9.8 m/sec²

d = distance travelled by falling object (m)

t = time taken (sec)

You can test your reaction time on THE REACTION TIME CLOCK HERE.

How MATH proves that Shakespeare is Your Ancestor!

You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, ETC, ETC

The no. of ancestors you have per generation follows an EXPONENTIAL FUNCTION:

Here are the numbers going back 50 generations or 1,000 years.

When you plot YOUR NO. ANCESTORS over a POPULATION OF THE WORLD GRAPH there is a problem. 

Population of the World DATA HERE

If you look at the graph (above) you will see that the No. YOUR ANCESTORS equalled the POPULATION OF THE WORLD about 500 years or 25 Generations ago.

You are related to everyone who was alive 500 years ago. Some of your ancestors inlcude:

Of course, EVERYONE else has these ancestors too.

If you go back 50 generations you have more ANCESTORS than the entire POPULATION OF THE WORLD.

Why?

Anthropologists say that there was a lot of IN BREEDING especially when humans lived in small tribes and the world population was small.

So way back every one of our family trees has members popping up all over the place. So we had far fewer ancestors than the math suggests.