Sariss Ravon
Slytherin 4th year
Proudly
presents
The Gecko Theft
Arithmancy EC
Physical characteristics of suspect:
Foot
length: 26 cm
Shoe
size according to this chart: http://www.i18nguy.com/l10n/shoes.html
European
= 42
US
= 8 ½ ( for male suspects), 10 (for female suspects)
Stride
length: 45 cm
Relation between height and shoe
size:

taken from: http://www.susq-town.org/sload/eisenhower/index/main.htm
According
to this scatter graph, there is no correlation between the height of a male and
their shoe size. However, it’s common for taller people to have bigger feet.
This is not obvious when we’re talking about average height, but the more
extreme someone deviates from the average, the more we can be certain that they
have bigger feet due to extreme height or very small feet due to small height.
Girl’s/women’s shoe sizes don’t vary just as much with height. However, if the
suspect is a woman or girl, they’re probably taller than the average male with
the above mentioned shoe size, for women’s feet are smaller than male one in
general.
A
male of about 65” height may have a shoe size that corresponds with the one of
the suspect.
See
also: http://mathforum.org/clime/math/graph.html
Stride length:
According
to the following source of information, the average stride length of an adult
is 75 cm. However, the smaller the person, the shorter their stride. The more
slowly someone walks, the larger is the stride length. And the higher the heels
are, the shorter is the stride length. Long strides indicate that a person was
moving slowly.
http://www.wien.gv.at/vtx/vtx-rk-xlink?SEITE=020011017010
Also,
women usually have shorter legs than men in relation to their total height. So
women’s strides tend to be shorter.
According
to the following source of information (http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/dissertationen/hegewald-guenther-2000-05-17/HTML/hegewald-ch8.html#iREF441645027
), stride lengths decline with age (note that the following graph displays Muggle ages).

Conclusion:
We
can say that the height of the suspect can only be determined very roughly. For
a male, the height may range somewhere about 65 inches. That indicates that it
may have been one of the younger students.
The
suspect may be either male or female. If suspect is a female in her early teens,
they have an above average shoe size while for men the size is below average.
The suspect may also be a teenage student of either gender.
Time of theft:
Volume of remaining water:
V
full container – V missing water = V remaining water
1/3
π r2h + π r2h - π r2h =
1/3
π
(2 cm)2 7.5 cm + π (2 cm)2 7.5 cm
- π
(2 cm)2 2.5 cm=
1/3 π 4 cm2 7.5 cm +
π 4 cm2 7.5 cm - π 4 cm2 2.5 cm =
1/3 π 30 cm3 + π 30 cm3 -
π 10 cm3 =
π 10 cm3 + π 30 cm3 -
π 10 cm3 =
π (10 cm3 + 30 cm3 - 10 cm3)=
π 30 cm3
Volume
of full container = π (10 cm3 + 30 cm3) = π 40 cm3
Volume
of remaining water = π 30 cm3
π 40 cm3 = 100% = 6 hours
π 30 cm3 = 75% = 4.5 hours
Container
was full at
Gecko
drank 25 % of the water. It takes 1.5 hours to empty a quarter of the container’s
content.
The
gecko was taken out of its cage at
Conclusions:
The
suspect must not have had any lessons nor have tended to other duties at the
time of the theft. The records of the Duelling Chamber might to determine as to
whether or not a person has an alibi. Also, sine the gecko was being kept in
the Potions laboratory, the Potions Mistress must not have been present there
at the time that the theft occurred. She would have noticed someone enter there
who did not belong there.