Real-Life Math
In school, your best subject was science. You love it, and you took
every science class that was offered. So when it came time to go to college,
you knew that you wanted to work toward a career in science.
It wasn't
until halfway through college when you were in California for summer break
that you decided you wanted to become a seismologist. During that trip, an
earthquake fascinated you more than it scared you and you knew you wanted
to know more about what makes earthquakes happen.
You've been
a practicing seismologist for several years now.
Today, you're
preparing a presentation for a grade school you will be addressing later in
the week. The job requires putting together the topics that you want to talk
about, getting the graphics that you'll need to grab the students'
attention and gathering statistics that help to illustrate your points.
Unfortunately,
you can't find one of the statistics that you want to use. You want to
create a chart to help illustrate the average intensity of an earthquake and
its first 2 aftershocks in California during the last year.
You've
collected the following information about all of the earthquakes that have
happened over the last year. There were 8 of them.
| Â | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| Â |
|
| EARTHQUAKE | 6.1 | 5.4 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 6.4 | 3.9 | 5.1 | 3.7 |
| AFTERSHOCK 1 | 4.7 | 4.9 | 3.6 | 3.8 | 5.9 | 2.8 | 4.3 | 3.1 |
| AFTERSHOCK 2 | 3.9 | 4.1 | 2.1 | 3.0 | 5.1 | 2.2 | 2.9 | 2.6 |
What is the average for the intensity of earthquakes this year?
And what is the average for each of the first 2 aftershocks?
"Mathematics
is a very important skill for a seismologist," says Ron Clowes. He is a seismologist.
"There are a variety of equations -- wave equations, etc. -- that are used
in seismology. You must have good math skills to succeed."