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Note: Diagram not to scale.
Setup
Setup
In this experiment, books of similar length and width were stacked on top of the detector in groupings of stacks.
The detector was run in coincidence mode with a heading of N57W. All tests were run indoors.
A control test was conducted first with no books over the detector but with the protective metal sheet in place to ensure that only the effect of the books would be measured. Then, books were added by the stack until a total of six stacks was reached. Each condition was run for a total of 10 minutes.
The density of all six stacks (not including the protective metal sheet) is 0.859 g/mL.
As designed, this experiment is susceptible to systemic error; the area of the field of cosmic particle detection increases by a function of a(x^2) as the height from the detector increases, yet the area of a horizontal cross - section of the book stack remains constant as height increases.
Ideally, the dimensions of the books should increase in length and width as the stack gets taller to fill the area of cosmic particle detection, but such is not the case in this experiment.
The chi squared per degrees of freedom value for the graph's trendline is 2.56
Results
Results
The graph's trendline displays a slight increase across the set of data points, but as the trendline's chi squared per degrees of freedom value is 2.56, the trendline does not represent the data well.
The variation in this data set is within the parameters of normal distribution, and thus books, being objects of relatively low densities, do not effect the rate of cosmic particle detection in lower quantities.
However, this experiment is prone to systemic error, and the effect of a book blockade cannot be accurately assessed based on the data collected.
Experiment Setup - Photo
Experiment Setup - Photo
Note: The photo is a reconstruction of the original experiment designed to give viewers a better understanding of the experiment setup. As it is a reconstruction, all and any values displayed in the photo (heading, light level, stack height and orientation, surroundings, etc.) are not to be considered as true to the original experiment.
Note: The experiment was reconstructed without all of the books in the original stack present. The stack height and stack orientation displayed in this photo are inaccurate to the total stack height and stack orientation of the original experiment's setup.
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