Schuelke 1

Ryan Schuelke

Mr. Trenfield Period 3

Pre-AP Algebra II

5/3/2019

Who Dunnit?

On the night of April 23, 2019, Mr. Noah Body was found dead. Body was found lifeless

in his bedroom at 9:45. Agent Butterfingers and I were called into action. We were asked to find

the time of the murder and the suspect who is guilty. We were given a list of suspects who had

interacted with the wealthy young man, and Agent Butterfingers and I concluded that the Butler

murdered Mr. Body at 5:04 p.m.

Mr. Body lived in a very large house, which led to multiple people to visit the house to

perform various jobs. Six possible suspects were seen at the Body residence on the 23rd of

April. The maid was see in the house. She arrived at 8am and left at 4:00 p.m. The Butler was in

and out of the house a majority of the day. He dined with the cook at 5:15 and then left after

dinner. The cook arrived at 2:00 p.m. to begin cooking dinner. He served his famous roast

chicken at 5:00 p.m., but Noah did not attend. The Gardener arrived to the house at 2:00 p.m. to

begin his work and left at 5:00 p.m. Noah’s wife was not at the house from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00

p.m. Mrs. Body was the one the call authorities after finding the lifeless body at 9:45pm. Mr.

Body’s Lawyer also met with Mr. Body at 3:00 p.m. and left the house at 4:30 p.m.

When we arrived at the scene we measured Mr. Body’ temperature at 10:07 p.m. and it

was 87.1 degrees Fahrenheit. An hour later, we measured the body temperature to be 85.6

degrees Fahrenheit. The thermostat was set to 75 degrees, and he had been in good health

and had not been sick recently.

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It was time to begin our study. We began by calculating the rate that Mr. Body’s

temperature was decreasing, by using the formula A=A​0​e​kt​. We found k (the decay rate), by

putting the initial value (Mr. Body’s original temperature), the time between temperature

readings, and the new value (Mr. Body’s temperature at the second reading). The equation we

created was 85.6=87.1e​1k​. When we used this decay rate, we got an answer that Mr. Body’s

temperature would have been 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (the temperature when he was last

alive) around 3:57pm. Agent Butterfingers and I figured our answer was wrong when we

understood we did not incorporate the fact that the room temperature of 75 degrees.

We realized this base temperature of 75 degrees would be the horizontal asymptote. We

ran to our cars, which have strangely placed computers on the dashboard, to do some research.

We ran through the database to find Newton’s Law of Cooling. Who ever knew that Newton

would be the answer to solving this strange murder case? This equation would let us deal with

the challenging room temperature that threw us a roadblock in our initial attempt. We quickly ran

back inside and found a piece of paper to do our new work.

The equation we had discovered was

T=(T​0​+T​s​)e​kt​+T​s​. The “T” at the beginning of the equation is the

final temperature of the victim's body. The “T​0​” was the initial

temperature of the victim’s body. The “T​s​” is the room

temperature of the room that the body was in, so the body

temperature can not go below that. The room temperature will

stand for the horizontal asymptote, as the body temperature

can not go below that. “K” will stand as the decay constant, and “t” is the time. Agent

Butterfingers and I began by finding the decay constant. We placed the temperatures that we

were measured into the formula to find the decay constant. The equation we produced was
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85.6=(87.1-75)e​k(1)​+75. We were able to subtract the 75 outside of the parenthesis from both

sides. We were also able to find the value inside the parenthesis by subtracting 87.1-75. The

new equation was 10.6=(12.1)e​k(1)​. We were able to divide 12.1 from both sides to create the

new equation of .8760330579=e​k​. Using natural logs the equation could be simplified out even

more to constitute the new equation of ln(.8760330579)=k. We were then able to plug this into

the calculator to get k=-.1323514515.

Now that we had the decay constant it was time to find the time of death. My partner and

I still used the equation for Newton’s Law of Cooling but now with different inputs. The equation

we constructed was 85.6=(98.6-75)e​-.13235145t​+75. We inserted 98.6 as the initial temperature,

because that is the normal body temperatures of humans, and he had not been sick recently, so

his temperature was normal. We also inserted a value for k and kept the time as a variable,

because we were attempting to find the time that Mr.

Body’s body was 98.6 degrees. Like previously, we

subtracted the 75 from both sides, and found the value

inside the parenthesis. We then developed the equation

10.6=23.6e​-.1323514515t​. Next, we divided 23.6 from both

sides of the equation to produce

.44915254525=e​-.1323514515t​. We used our brain power and

knowledge of natural logs to create the equation ln(.4491525425)=-.1323514515t. Using natural

logs we were able to get rid of the “e,” and isolate the “kt” value. To get rid of the “e” we had to

make the left side of the equation a natural log. We were then able to divide both sides of the

equation by -.1323514515. We were getting closer to finding who is guilty when we plugged in

the equation of ln(.4491525425)/-.1323514514=t into the calculator. After all of this hard work

we finally came to an equation that would lead us to cracking the case. After plugging it into the
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calculator the number we produced was 6.05. Mr. Body had died 6.05 hours prior to our 11:07

p.m. measurement.

It was time to find the minutes that we needed to subtract to get the time of murder. We

subtracted 6 from 6.05, because it was easier to work with and we already knew that 6 is the

number of hours. We then multiplied the difference which was .05 times 60 to convert the value

into minutes. We found it to be three minutes. Thus, we knew that Mr. Body died 6 hours and

three minutes prior to our 11:07 p.m. temperature reading. Subtracting 6 hours and three

minutes from the 11:07 p.m. reading, we figured out the

time of death to be 5:04pm.

With this time there are two possibilities of guilty

suspects, because both the Butler and the Cook were at

the house at 5:00 p.m. But it has been concluded that the

Butler is guilty, because the Butler ate dinner with the

Cook. The Cook went to dinner at 5:00 p.m, but the Butler

did not show up until 5:15pm. It appears that the Cook was waiting on the Butler at 5:04pm.

Therefore the Butler is guilty. In conclusion, the Butler killed Mr. Noah Body at 5:04pm.

Our solution is supported by the graph below. The x axis represents the time from Mr.

Body’s death. The y axis is Mr. Body’s body temperature.

The blue line represents the decline in temperature given the decay rate. Because the

room temperature is 75 degrees, the body’s temperature would never go below 75 degrees.

The purple line is a measurement of 85.6 degrees, our measurement of Mr. Body’s temperature

at 11:07 p.m.

At time = 0, when Mr. Body was last alive, his body temperature is 98.6 degrees. We

calculated at 11:07 p.m. that Mr. Body’s temperature was 85.6 degrees. The graph shows that
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this intercept (where Mr. Body’s temperature was 85.6) was at 6.047 hours after Mr. Body had a

body temperature of 98.6. We rounded this up to 6.05 hours for our calculations above.