Editing Final Report 2010 (section)

===Random Letters===
[[Image:randomletter.jpg|thumb|right|Completed Random Letter Sample form.]]
A total of 46 samples (23 sober, 23 intoxicated) were collected from a range of different subjects.  This allowed for significant results that were compiled and compared to the letter distribution found in the mystery code.  Samples from sober and intoxicated subjects were compiled, just like last year’s students did, in order to also analyse the likelihood of the mystery code being produced randomly by a person under the influence of a poison.
Due to moral and ethical issues that arise with actually poisoning people, alcohol was used as a substitute in order to impair the subject’s judgment.
A template for collecting random letter samples was created and used to collect 45 random letter samples from a variety of subjects. 45 was chosen as it is roughly the number of letters in the Somerton man code. Details taken from each subject include the following, and can be seen in the completed form to the right. 

*Intox. Yes/no - the Physical state of each subject was recorded to keep samples taken from intoxicated subjects separate from those that were, to the best of our knowledge, not under the influence of any substance. 

*Age – each subject was required to supply their age for future use 

*M/F – the sex of each subject was recorded for future use

As can be seen by the sample to the right it was initially planned to use the age and sex data that has been collected to subdivide the results into different categories in order to conclude whether the letters in the Somerton man code are better correlated to a specific age group or sex.  After the results had been compiled it was realised that this information will only prove fruitful when there is a much larger amount of random samples recorded.  These extra details have not been utilised in the results of this project.

====Discussion====
As can be seen, the results collected are not identical to the previous student’s results; however they are very different to the graph depicting the code from the Somerton man. It is clear that in both sets of results there is not 1 singular letter that has a frequency less than 1%. This leads us to agree with the previous assumption that the code has not been produced randomly in a sober attempt to deceive or create a diversion.

A very similar result was obtained with the intoxicated samples.  This suggests that it is also unlikely that the mystery code has been written in a random fashion by an intoxicated or delusional individual.

The fact that the two different results (this year and last year) show varying results is important.  This suggests that the amount of samples collected each time is most likely not enough to give a perfect answer as to whether or not the code has been produced randomly by an individual.  Future studies could work on taking a much larger number of samples to see whether the letter distribution varies greatly from those already collected and therefore also obtain a more definitive conclusion.

Another important detail is the small number of letters in the mystery code itself (about 45).  If a given letter of the alphabet is only expected to occur, say 1% of the time when produced randomly by a person, then it is highly likely that it would not occur at all in a sample of only 45 letters.  If it has been produced randomly this could explain why some letters, such as X, Y, and J are not present in the mystery code at all.  However, the high frequency of the letters K and Z in the collected samples suggest that this is not the case.

In summary, from the results obtained, it is feasible to assume that the mystery code has not been produced randomly by somebody in a state of intoxication or as a form of deception however this could be further established with a larger sample base.


[[Image:Random_letter_samples_pic.jpg|center]]

Below are the results obtained by the 2009 students.
[[Image:compare.png|center]]