6.

Newtons Cooling Activity A CALCULUS MURDER TRIAL

Inspired by Joel S Foisy SUNY Potsdam

A murder has been committed: Location: Outside School Building Victim: Teacher Suspect: A student Motive: No more calculus tests Murder weapon: Syringe lled with undisclosed poison. Time of Death: Unknown Date:

6.4.1

Facts:

(1.) Suspect was seen at the cafeteria until 7 : 50 am. (2.) Syringe has Suspects ngerprints. (3.) The body temperature at 8 : 10am was 96o , and at 8 : 16 was 95o . (4.) Ocial temperature this morning is 27o at 7 : 00 am, 31o at 8 : 00am, and 37o at 9 : 0am. (5.) Doctor conrms that teacher had a fever of 101o yesterday. (6.) Poison is found in bloodstream along with aspirin. It is not known if the amount of aspirin is enough to aect fever. Activity: [ 50 points : QUIZ] Defense Team: Prosecution Team: Media Commentary: Jury: Judge: Teacher

6.5

Students Expectations

Defense: You will have to use Newtons law of cooling to establish reasonable doubt to the jury, that sweet little Emily could have possibly killed me. Anticipate the attacks the prosecution might have, and be ready with counterarguments. Prosecution: You will give your opening argument rst.You want to establish the suspects guilt in the jurors minds using Newtons law of cooling. Anticipate the defendants arguments in your opening argument. Media Commentary: You will present Newtons Law of cooling in a way the public can understand. Try to imagine what the defense tactics will be. What is the actual initial body temperature, estimated temperature outside? Jury: You will listen to all arguments and decide whether the suspect is guilty or innocent. Provide mathematical reasons for your decision. Each team will provide a written argument to the dead teacher. Try to restrict yourself to mathematical arguments. Points are awarded based on the amount of math that is used to prove your argument, the accuracy of said math, and the analysis of the other teams mathematics. You must make a mathematical argument during your oral presentations. Justication must be made to the jury and judge while you are presenting. Citing a written document does not count as justication.

6.5.1

Presentation

Each section should be 3-7 minutes long. The presentation must contain the mathematics you are using to argue your case. Verbal Justication, as well as written, must be convincing enough to inuence the jury and the judge. (1.) Media Commentators read the facts and present Newtons Law of Cooling. (2.) Prosecution Opening argument (3.) Defense Opening argument (4.) Media Commentator (5.) Prosecution Rebuttal (6.) Defense Rebuttal (7.) Media Commentator (8.) Prosecution Closing Arguments (9.) Defense Closing Arguments (10.) Jury decision and Media

6.6

Objective

Students will use their knowledge of dierential equations to narrow the time of the murder. The problem has many twists, however, that will force the students to change the book formula for Newtons law of cooling which allows for only a constant surrounding temperature. Since the surrounding temperature is variable, they must decide whether they will model the temperature with a function, nd an average temperature using integrals, or approximate values with Eulers method. Due to the unknown initial body temperature, they would need to nd a function which models the body temperature of the victim, and nd when the temperature was 98.6o . This requires some exponential regression. They must also analyze the mathematics other teams and nd a margin of error to convince the jury. Students will either have to use separable dierential equations to nd upper and lower bounds for the time of murder, or use an integrating factor to solve the murder outright. This activity is exible in that the teacher can make it as challenging as he or she wants.