Earthquake Predictions!

[unpopular]

My wife has just finished her very last undergraduate assignment, which happened to be a paper for her stats class. I am happy to say, she has successfully been able to predict earthquake magnitudes!

There are some minor limitations. It can only predict what an earthquake's magnitude might have been, if an earthquake had taken place there in the last week from today. No other time period.

The formula is as follows:

Suspected Magnitude=3.3350+0.0078∙depth-0.0106∙latitude+0.0098∙longitude

But remember, it can't tell you when the earthquake is going to happen, or even if your location is at risk for a big earthquake... only what the magnitude of an earthquake would have likely been if there was an earthquake, and only extending as far back as seven days from today, December 11th 2012.

SUPER USEFUL

 

[Demers18]

My wife has just finished her very last undergraduate assignment, which happened to be a paper for her stats class. I am happy to say, she has successfully been able to predict earthquake magnitudes!

Their are some minor limitations. It can only predict what an earthquake's magnitude might have been in the last week, if an earthquake had taken place there in the last week from today. No other time period.

The formula is as follows:

Suspected Magnitude=3.3350+0.0078∙depth-0.0106∙latitude+0.0098∙longitude

But remember, it can't tell you when the earthquake is going to happen, or even if your location is at risk for a big earthquake... only what the magnitude of an earthquake would have been if there was an earthquake, and only extending as far back as seven days from today, December 11th 2012.

SUPER USEFUL

Sweet! Now I can set up a program that continually runs so I can know when to "hide" incase an earthquake of large magnitude MAY hit

All joking aside, congrats to your wife, I'm sure that wasn't an easy thing to figure out and there's certainly someone out there that make good use of that information.
Being someone with a wife that's currently in school, Midwifery, I know what you art going through.

 

[unpopular]

Actually, it only predicts the magnitude earthquakes which might have occurred LAST WEEK. It's actually a lower level stats class, so she's getting a kick out of the uselessness of the formula, almost a fitting end to a class she'll inevitably probably never actually need. Fortunately the point is just to apply what they learned about data modeling to real data of their choice, not to make something functional or practical.

But yeah. It's been a ROUGH semester, been super busy and all upper division aside from this stats class. She'll be applying for grad school, but she's going to take a year off to rest, study for the LSAT in case she decides to go back in that direction, and save up some money. We're not done yet, but there is an end in sight for her.

 

[Demers18]

Actually, it only predicts the magnitude earthquakes which might have occurred LAST WEEK. It's actually just a lower level stats class, so she's getting a kick out of the uselessness of it. Fortunately the point is just to apply what they learned about data modeling to real data of their choice, not to make something functional or practical.

But yeah. It's been a ROUGH semester, been super busy and all upper division aside from this stats class. She'll be applying for grad school, but she's going to take a year off to rest, study for the LSAT in case she decides to go back in that direction, and save up some money. We're not done yet, but there is an end in sight for her.

I guess that would be pretty useless if it would only be good for last week. Unless of course there would have been an earthquake.

Rough semester, tell me about it. My wife has just finished her first semester of a 4 year undergraduate program that ensures us of being moved across the province throughout year 3 and 4. Lots of exciting things to look forward to. Although, I must admit the potential of an over seas placement in either Hawaii or New Zealand in her third year would definitely make up for it. That would mean a 3 month photography placement for me

 

[unpopular]

yes, but if there was an earthquake then you'd already have known it's magnitude. It's kind of a "too little too late" prediction.

Yes, we're going to be moving also, either Seattle or Missoula, both are a welcome change for me.

 

[Demers18]

True enough.
Seattle is a beautiful place. I've driven through a couple of times and you'd be really close to Oregon coast which is also a beautiful part of your country. You may have to take up a bit of lanscape photography if you end up there.

 

[unpopular]

landscape is deff not a strong point for me, but either location would give me plenty of opportunity.

 

[thetrue]

You'll have to get a few cliche Space Needle shots if you go to Seattle.

 

[unpopular]

i'll take photos of the space needle for sure, but knowing me, I'll do it in a way that absolutely nobody will appreciate!

Missoula though isn't far from seattle, only about 8 hours by train. I'm sure we'll go for a visit. That part of the country we want to eventually end up anyway.

 

[thetrue]

Make sure the horizon is off by about 35deg

Then justify it by saying "I wanted to get the WHOLE THING and the diagonal just made sense"

 

[molested_cow]

Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle Seattle !!!!
And you get to put the equation to test!

Seriously, Seattle has everything (except the terrible winter weather) that I want. Mountain and ocean. Lush forest, great seafood! Diversity in its population, decent public transportation. Plus, endless mountain and coastal curvy roads for endless driving pleasure!

 

[unpopular]

^^ and $50K tuition to complete as opposed to $14K.

It really depends on if Lo decides to go back to law, if she does what her LSAT score is or continue with her current plan of social work, and what UW offers for scholarships and RA/TA positions as a social work students. But with a greater than 30k price differential, and about $20k already in the bucket, we have a hard time justifying space needles and rain forests.

 

[spacefuzz]

The formula is as follows:

Suspected Magnitude=3.3350+0.0078∙depth-0.0106∙latitude+0.0098∙longitude

SUPER USEFUL

I know I am a terrible person for nitpicking an equation, but it seems to me to be not a predictor but more of an earthquake isograph, plotting all the earthquakes over the last 7 days and just spreading out the effects based on lat/long. Or is there more to the constants than Im seeing?

On a sort of related note, I hope the class was interesting to her. At my school stats sucked and it was never interesting until I saw its power in engineering after graduation.

 

[unpopular]

I know I am a terrible person for nitpicking an equation

given that as I said, it only estimates the magnitude of an earthquake if there were an earthquake in the last week, yes, "prediction" is hardly the right word. There may have been som exaggeration on my part.

Your analysis is 100% accurate. It was a pretty cool assignment, which taught not only how to use the data but what the limitations are.

However, it is very accurate, and you can go back to the original data, enter in the coordinates of where earthquakes had happened durring this timeframe, and interestingly, the result is close to the average. Naturally, more accurate where there were more earthquakes.