Fourier Series and Cepheid Variables

no_drama_llama_77 · Oct 31, 2020

Vanadium 50 said:

Do you think so? That means you think you know the period to one part in a thousand. (And for that matter, that the period is stable to one part in a thousand)

I really don't know. The uncertainty is left blank.

Vanadium 50 said:

That said, I am still far from convinced that you are doing anything besides chasing fluctuations.
A. If you split the data into pre-1940 and post-1940 do you get the same answer?
B. If you fit even and odd data points do you get the same answer?

I'm not because my math IA (an essay written for my math class for the IB) focuses more on the mathematical working and steps rather than the precision of the data I've collected from AAVSO. I would love to get my data as precise as possible but I don't have the time.

Vanadium 50 said:

"I got the same result as someone else, and therefore I must be right" is not the way we do science. People have gotten burned doing this.

I understand; however, I am a high school student trying to write up my math investigation paper. The curriculum commends students for verifying their data with literature values for accuracy.