Project 4 Angela Beyer Math 1040 Part I The following tables are the histories of world records set

in the Mens 200 freestyle swimming and the womens 800 freestyle swimming events up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The x stands for the number of years after 1900, and the y stands for the time in seconds for each record. The time has to be converted to seconds in order to be able to accurately portray the data with a single measurement instead of the mixed measurements of minutes and seconds.
Men's 200 M Freestyle Swimming x y 8 151.60 10 150.00 11 145.40 16 141.60 20 139.80 22 135.60 25 135.20 27 128.00 35 127.20 44 126.20 46 125.40 50 124.60 54 123.90 55 123.40 57 121.50 58 124.80 58 123.20 58 123.00 59 122.20 59 121.50 61 121.20 61 121.10 61 120.40 63 120.30 63 118.80 Women's 800 M Freestyle Swimming x Y 19 799.00 25 778.20 25 776.00 26 767.20 27 737.80 29 723.80 30 701.20 35 694.40 36 671.70 41 652.50 53 642.40 56 630.90 57 627.30 58 617.70 58 616.20 58 611.80 59 611.40 60 595.60 62 591.60 64 587.30 64 576.90 67 575.80 67 562.90 67 559.00 68 557.80

63 63 64 64 66 66 67 67 68 71 71 72 74 75 75 75 78 79 80 82 83 83 84 84 88 89 99 99 99 100 100 100 101 101 107 108

118.50 118.40 118.20 117.60 117.20 116.20 116.00 115.70 114.30 114.20 113.50 112.78 111.66 111.41 110.89 110.32 110.29 109.80 109.16 108.93 108.28 107.87 107.55 107.44 107.25 106.69 106.67 106.34 106.00 105.69 105.51 105.35 104.69 104.06 103.86 102.96

68 70 70 71 71 72 72 73 74 74 75 76 76 76 77 78 78 78 78 87 87 88 89 108

550.40 549.10 542.40 539.40 538.10 533.83 533.68 532.97 530.10 527.50 523.48 520.68 519.63 517.14 515.04 514.86 511.30 510.53 504.62 502.44 499.53 497.12 496.22 494.10

Part II.

Men's 200 M freestyle swimming records

160.00 140.00 Time (in seconds) 120.00 100.00 80.00 60.00 40.00 20.00 0.00 0 20 40 60 Years after 1900 80 100 120

Women's 800 M freestyle swimming records

900.00 800.00 700.00 600.00 500.00 400.00 300.00 200.00 100.00 0.00 0 20 40 60 Years after 1900 80 100 120 Time (in seconds)

As you can see, there is a fairly steady negative slope in each of the scatterplots. These negative slopes show the gradual decline in seconds of the record times for each of these races as we get further after the year 1900. There are no outliers that would significantly affect these two sets of data.

Part III: The linear correlation coefficient r is a measurement that tells us how closely the x and y values are correlated to each other in a given sample. I have calculated the value of r for both the mens 200 M and the womens 800 M freestyle swimming data sets. The r value for the mens data set is -0.97259, and the r value for the womens data set is -0.97037. Using table A-6 Critical Values of the Pearson Correlation Coefficient r, I am able to see that the linear correlation coefficient r lies in the left tail of the graph, so there is sufficient evidence to support the claim of linear correlation. The linear equation Record Time = a(year)+b can be used to calculate predictions for the record time of a year that we may not have data for. In this equation, a represents the slope of the line, and b represents where the line intercepts the y axis. The equation for the mens data set is Record Time = -0.44611(year) + 147.2654. The equation for the womens data set is Record Time= -4.16011(year) + 848.3921. Part IV: Using the equations above, I am able to predict the world record times for the years 2012, 2100 and 776 BC as follows. Year 2012 2100 776 BC Mens 200 M record (in seconds) 97.30 58.04 1341.06 Womens 800 M record (in seconds) 382.46 16.37 11980.85

The predictions for the year 2012 are fairly reasonable, and could possibly happen. However, the years 2100 and 776 BC are not very realistic. I cannot imagine it would be possible for someone to swim 800 meters in 16.37 seconds even with advances in technology. Also, it is not likely that it took over three hours for someone to swim 800 meters in the year 776 BC. Although there does appear to be a linear correlation between years and swimming records, there is not a causal relationship between the two. The date cannot cause a person to swim faster or slower. But there are other factors (swimming techniques and technology, for example) that can contribute to the changes in swimming speeds.