Science Tony

By McDonald, T.   |  Updated 24th of March 2020 Small errors in spreadsheets have been the cause of major problems in real life. Examining the kinds of common errors in spreadsheets helps us understand the general problems working with data can present. In order to understand these problems, it is a good idea to look at what a spreadsheet is and how equations can go wrong. Spreadsheet ideas   A spreadsheet consists of one or more sheets: A sheet is a two-dimensional (array) of cells in which each cell is referenced by an index consisting of its column letter and row number. A cell can contain data or a calculation (known as a formula). There is a text box, known as a formula bar, in which the contents of a cell are displayed, and which is used for creating and editing the contents of the cell. What is a spreadsheet?   A sheet can contain one or more: Tables (sheets) A table is a two-dimensional array of data; some data is numeric, some is text. The tabl

By McDonald, T.   |  Date 3 of August 2019 Charities are taking over the high street and all of them have volunteers. What kind of people volunteer and why?  While I have been volunteering, I took note of the people and the reasons why they volunteer. I found four main categories of people in the volunteer sector: academics wishing to gain hands on experience; people wish to give something back to the community; peers who wish to support one another through an experience; people looking to escape loneliness. Academics Gaining Experience I found academics volunteering for one main reason: experience. For instance, the volunteer police force gives people experience to go with their degrees in psychology and criminology. In a different type of volunteer role, students in management gain experience of how an organisation is run through volunteering in shops or charities aimed at supporting people with special needs. Charities have lots of interesting positions; subseq

By T. McDonald | 29/07/19 | Updated 07/10/19 Did you know that nuclear tests can be felt on the Richter scale? This investigation maps the nuclear tests registering 5.5 or greater on the Richter scale from 1969 to 2017. (Click on the markers to find out more about that test). At first it may look as if there are not many tests, but if you zoom in on one of the clusters, you will see many more markers. During the investigation it was discovered that the cause 'explosion' was actually four more nuclear explosions. Twelve test sites were discovered with six consisting of many tests, and six with less than ten occurrences. North Korea with just one test was the last nuclear explosion detected in the dataset. The average magnitude showed no real difference with nuclear a explosion was 5.86 and earthquakes at 5.87.  Furthermore, the biggest nuclear explosion was in 1973 and took place at Novaya Zemlya, Russia.  Further investigation revealed little difference between