SRP Researches

Oh god. The SRP is due like in six days time! And I've only just finished the basic draft for my introduction (Ms. Zhang said that we have to reference every sentence even if the whole paragraph comes from one source, so I have a lot more referencing to do). But I guess most of the research has been done by now (unless you count the occational add ins to the discussion).

The most sensational bit was that I actually discovered that the type of lamp I used for the experiment is called halogen lamp (because it is filled with halogen gases like chlorine etc. and not the argon and hydrogen mixture -?- you get in a regular incandescent bulb. It is more efficient). And there are many sources that confirm the fact that it does produce light shifted to the blue end of the spectrum (so it produces UV of the larger wavelengths). This was really important for me as I was at one stage doubting the accuracy of my apparatus. I just randomly gave it a shot at the lamp (to be honest, I didn't expect any UV index other than 0). When it says that the lamp produces UV, I doubted that maybe it was just picking up the brightness of the light (in that case, the apparatus cannot measure the actual amount of UV, but only the brightness of sunlight - which in a way can also tell you how strong the UV is. But that would mean my experiment is stuffed. I know the label says it measures UV, but it was bought on internet - can't be too careful!). But now it turns out that I was just worrying for nothing, so, phew....

I've just been realising that I would need two more sets of data gathered under the sun for my experiment to be better. When I drew up a scatter graph using my results, I discovered that the three sets of data collected under the lamplight has a linear trend that goes straight down. Its lowest point (i.e. when the glass thickness equals to 15mm) is around 28 or so. But the set of data collected under the sun (which was the first set that I did) has its lowest point at around 60. And its general trend was to decrease sharply then the gradient was becoming very slight. So I just want to see if any other data collected under the sun would be like that - if they are going to be, it might be due to the different wavelengths of UV each light source produces (the halogen lamp mainly produces UVA that is just off the violet end of visual spectrum where as the sunlight we get here contain UVB as well. Soda lime glass would absorb the shorter wavelengths, which might be why there is a difference in data. Or it could be that since the sunlight experiment was my first, maybe I didn't handle the apparatus correctly? I don't know, but it's exciting to see the results come up). I need a weekend to do it, because it is only around noon when the UV is the strongest (a research proven fact) - so that the results can be scaled enough to be analysed, otherwise it would be just a whole bunch of zeroes that can tell me nothing.

I don't know what I have put onto the final blog. But Ms Zhang just said to update, so that part has already been taken care of. Hopefully I can finish the report before Sunday (so that I get one day to have fun... oh no! I still have to study for the rotation test and prepare the English and History assessments!! I just hope that term 2 ends as soon as possible) and I've planned to hand it in on Wedensday because I don't want to get deductions simply because the train was late or I sleeped in or an alien took my paper on the way to school.