Newton's law of cooling

1. What is the Newton’s Law of Cooling?
A method we can use to calculate the time of death of a person, depending on the temperature dropping of the body.
2. What variables in your problem correspond with the variables in the Newton’s Law of Cooling?
The enviroment
If the body was sick or not
The temperature
3. According to this Law, at what time approximately the death happened?
7:26 pm
4. How does the room temperature affect the time of death?
Depending on the temperature it was, is the change of the temperature.
5. How does an illness (e.g. fever) affect the time of death?
Because it means that the person didnt have a normal temperature, so they cant compare it and it will be not exact.
6. How exact is the approximation of the Newton’s Law of Cooling for predicting the time of death?
Not very exact, but close to the truth, it is useful as a guide.

Week # 6

4 last Questions from the process

4. What methods are commonly used to find the time of death?
* Rate Method
* Concurrence method

5. What factors are considered in Algor Mortis?
* The size of the body
* Clothing and coverings
* Movement and humidity of the air
* Immersion in water

6. How does the environment affect the time of death?
Because depending on the body temperature and the enviroment temperature is the time that the body has been exposed at that enviromental temperature. That way we can know the time of death.

7. What can you tell about the different methods of temperature reading of the body? Do they make a difference in the results?
I think it's not easy to have the exact time of death, but with most of the methods you can get very close because the evidence in the body could be tricky but one way or another you can know what factors that affected the difference between the result of one method or another.

Final project

The MACKBrand investigators

Math Expert: Brando Islas

Media Expert: Martha Minjares

Forensic Scientist: Clarissa Rivera

Journalist: Alejandra Baldenebro

Math Expert: Kenya Medina

The three questions

1. What is forensic science?

Is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or to a civil action. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensics)

Is the use of technology and science to gather information about a case, which is usefull to the legal system.

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

Fluids, tissues, biological samples, tools, guns, documents, pictures, videos.. among others.

3. Why is important to determine the time of death?

That way the detective can get close to the murder and to reason why he or she was murdered.


I think the main objective of this project is to apply the knowledge we obtain in class to real life and in this case, based on a murdering or a civil case to make it more fun and interesting. We always learn new thing in school and this can be a good oportunity to apply what we know so that we can later remember well the process and concepts we have studied.