An earthquake struck the country of Eutopia, leaving debris everywhere and contaminating water supplies. Members of the World Health Organization used mathematics to assess the damage and determine relief needs. They calculated the earthquake's magnitude on the Richter scale to gauge its intensity. A higher magnitude above 5 requires more urgent aid. They also measured water pH levels to identify contamination, calculating hydrogen ion concentrations to establish whether water was potable. By using logarithm-based formulas, they could efficiently evaluate the situation and allocate appropriate resources and manpower to affected areas.

1. 3O309 Greg G Tan
3O306 Delvin Chua
3O305 Chow Hanqi
MATH CAN SAVE LIVES!

2. Who Are We?
• Members of the World Health Organisation
• Find out situation of natural disaster-struck areas
• Determine the level of damage
• IMPROVE THE SITUATION

3. What Happened?
• Recently, an earthquake struck Eutopia (a country)
• There is debris everywhere
• Poor sanitisation areas  unsure whether water is potable

4. How Do We Help?
• Firstly, we can find out the intensity of the earthquake
• Using the Richter scale,
R = lg(x/0.001)
R is the magnitude and where x is the intensity of the earthquake
• R>5 requires more attention and needs help more urgently that
other countries whose earthquake has a less magnitude

5. How Do We Help?
• To ensure that water is potable, we can measure the pH level of it
• The pH is defined by the formula
pH = -lg[H+]
H+ is the concentration of hydrogen ions in mol/l or M
• By defining whether the water is acidic or basic, we can then
determine which chemical to use to neutralise the water and make
it pure potable water

6. How Is This Related To Mathematics
(specifically Logarithms)?
• Using the formulae with logarithms, we can find out how critical the
situation is
• We can then decide how much resources and manpower we should
allocated to affected areas

7. Question 1
•What is the concentration of hydrogen ions must
there be in the water to allow pure potable water
with a pH of 7?
•Solution:
pH = -lg[H+]
7 = -lg[H+]
-7 = lg[H+]
10-7 = H+
#
Change to exponential form

8. Question 2
•The 2006 Sumatra earthquake registered a
magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale. What is the
intensity of earthquake? (Hint: Use the formula)
•Solution:
R = lg(x/0.001)
9.0 = lg(x/0.001)
109 = x/0.001
x = 109 x 0.001
x = 1 000 000#
Change to exponential form

9. Thank you!