The Kelly Steph & Sophie Project

From MariachiWiki

Graph 1 in the "classroom" in the basement
Graph 2 basement, under 4ft concrete
Graph 3 middle floor of the building
Graph 4 basement near the elevator

Graph 5 Graph 6 Graph 1 and graph 2 are areas on the same floor that represent two different environments, one with regular walls between it and the atmosphere and the other with a 4 foot thick concrete wall establishing the seperation. Comparing these graphs shows that the number of cosmic rays coming into contact with Cosmic Chris per minute did in fact differ. As we had anticipated, more cosmic rays were counted in the "classroom" as opposed to the room with the particle accelerator. The thick concrete reduced (but did not prevent) the cosmic rays from entering the room. Graph one shows that the average frequency of the rays hitting Cosmic Chris was about 16.6Hz whereas the frequency in the particle accelerator with the concrete was only 15.6Hz.

Graph 3 shows how the graph is affected when we get closer to the roof. The counts on floor B shows that the average frequency of collisions of cosmic particles to Chris was around 18Hz. This was also expected because the cosmic rays are coming through the atmosphere rather that the ground, so it makes sense that the closer you get to the atmosphere, the more cosmic rays you will receive. We were also next to a window, which we can hypothesize would lead to a higher number of cosmic rays coming through the glass window as opposed to the opaque wall (note: this is a hypothesis and we did not check this quantitatively; that could be an experiment for next time!).

What was not expected, however, were the results found in Graph 4. This reading was takeken near the elevator and, like the Graphs 1 and 2, in the basement. But the average frequency was only about 13.9Hz. This average is less than Graph 3 which was expected however, it is also much less than the other two readings in the basement.This is odd because, we had expected it to be about the same as the reading in the classroom and thus larger than the reading in the room with the 4 feet of concrete. There were no significant barriers between where we took this reading and the atmosphere.

We are wondering if this is a failure of equipment. We recorded our data in the classroom first, did all of our other readings, then took a few more measurements in the classroom at the ended to make sure our equipment was working properly. Our initial average frequency for the classroom was about 16.65Hz while our later reading showed about 16.1Hz. This difference is not very drastic so it seems like our equipment is working fairly accurately. Our unexpected reading really is quite baffeling. Perhaps there was a significant barrier near the elevator that we were unaware of, or some other factor near that area that affected our data. Obviously, more counts will have to be taken to see if there really is such a difference between the area by the elevator as opposed to the classroom.