Part 3

1. What is the Newton’s Law of Cooling?

It is the change of temperature of an object influenced by the rate of temperature from the surrounding environment.

2. What variables in your problem correspond with the variables in the Newton’s Law of Cooling?

The times “T”, the environments temperature “Yt”, the constant “C” value and “K” value.

3. According to this Law, at what time approximately the death happened?

According to the information, between 8:47pm and 8:55pm

4. How does the room temperature affect the time of death?

The time of death change depending to the temperature of the room or environment, when the room is cooler more heat looses the body and when its warmer it’s easiest to get the time of death of the body.

5. How does an illness (e.g. fever) affect the time of death?

When the body had suffered from fever or have injuries it influence the temperature of the body and those facts can change the whole procedure to get the time of death, so those facts have to be in consideration in order to get the right time of death.

6. How exact is the approximation of the Newton’s Law of Cooling for predicting the time of death?

I think it gives you a very close approximation of the time of death if you have all the data right, cause in order to find an exact time of death you have to consider even the minimum thing to make it right.

THE PROCESS PART 2

4. What methods are commonly used to find the time of death?
To estimate the time of death forensic scientists commonly use the following 2 methods:

1. The rate method: Which consist in measure the changes of the corpes produced by a process which takes place at a known rate that was either initiated or stopped by the event under investigation. (Rigor mortis, body temperature, body putrefaction)

2. The concurrence method: Is a comparison between the occurrence event which took place at known times and the time of occurrence of the event under investigation. (digestion)

5. What factors are considered in Algor Mortis?

*There is consider the body temperature estimations.
*The Intra-abdominal temperature or by rectum.
*The environmental temperature.
*Where the body is laid, if is a cold surface and also influence if the cloth the body wears is wet.

6. How does the environment affect the time of death?

1. The size of the body: It depends on the mass of the body, if it is a small body it will lose heat more quickly than a bigger body.
2. Clothing and Covering: These slow down the cooling of the body, and when naked is faster.
3. Movement and humidity of the air: The movement of the air takes away the heat of the body, and accelerates its cooling. In humid air the cooling is quicker because moist air is better conductor of heat.
4. Immersion in water: The body cools faster in water than in air because water is a better heat conductor.

7. What can you tell about the different methods of temperature reading of the body? Do they make a difference in the results?

In a kind of way they are the same, the Algor Mortis is the one that convinced me more because it consider all the factors that can determine the time of death of a person. I think that all the factors are different ways to get to the same answer, some of them seems more complex than others and by the way some of them must be more exact than others, but at the end they’re all supposed to give approximately the same result.

Murder we wrote

• Team’s name: "Los Topis"
• Integrants:

Topacio Campos Muñoz (http://toppyworld.blogspot.com/)
Yuliana Sáchez Camporredondo (http://www.llule.blogspot.com/)
Aitza Terán Roldán (http://www.aitzateran.blogspot.com/)
Armando Amor González (http://www.blogspot.com/)

• Roles "Murder We Wrote":

The Math Expert: Yuliana
The Media Expert: Armando
The Journalist: Topacio
The Forensic Scientist: Aitza

• Questions:

1. What is forensic science?

Forensic science is the application of science and scientific knowledge to questions which are of interest to the legal system as well as social sciences such as archeology.

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

Fingerprints, footprints, DNA, time of death, toothmarks, physical evidence, etc.

3. Why is important to determine the time of death?
Because knowing the time of death allows the investigator to determine if the possible murderer/ suspect is guilty or not, or together with the other evidences to determine who the murderer was. Time of death can be determined by the body’s temperature, muscles hardening or the insects living in the corpse.

4. Write a short paragraph about what you think is the GOAL or MAIN objective of the final project.

We think that this project "Murder we Wrote" seeks to motivate us, as students to learn more about the applications of mathemathics and how it can be related to other areas of study such as biology or forensic science among others; to notice that there’s plenty of maths out there and we can actually be part of them if we like. And it can be very interesting and funny indeed.