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Dr. Douglas G. Frank is the scientist/mathematician behind this blog.

Dr. Douglas G. Frank

Dr. Frank received a B.A. in Chemistry from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. He qualified for his doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara before transferring to the University of Cincinnati in 1986 as part of the Ohio Eminent Scholar program. In 1990, he received a Ph.D. in Surface Analytical Chemistry. After graduating, he formed “ADAM Instrument Company, Inc.,” named for the new surface analysis technique he discovered during his graduate studies. The “ADAM” technique brought him international acclaim, and his work was featured in several scientific books and international journals, including cover articles in Science and Naturwissenschaften. He has over 50 scientific publications, and is internationally regarded as an expert in Auger spectroscopy.

Dr. Frank currently serves as the Math and Science Chair at the Schilling School for Gifted Children in Cincinnati, OH. He is also the President of Precision Analytical Instruments.

All words below this line are compiled from Dr. Frank. Other than ordering and organizing the comments and the charts, we (DPH) have not edited any of his comments because that would be out of our area of expertise. The comments were given in a social media context, so they have a friendly, conversational tone.

For State graphs, click the state below:

Each state is updated daily, or as often as Dr. Frank supplies an updated chart.

Alabama     Alaska     Arizona     Arkansas     California.    Colorado     Connecticut     Delaware     Florida     Georgia     Hawaii     Idaho    Illinois
Indiana     Iowa     Kansas     Kentucky     Louisiana     Maine     Maryland     Massachusetts     Michigan     Minnesota     Mississippi     Missouri
Montana     Nebraska     Nevada     New Hampshire     New Jersey     New Mexico     New York     North Carolina     North Dakota     Ohio    Oklahoma     Oregon     Pennsylvania     Rhode Island    South Carolina     South Dakota.    Tennessee    Texas     Utah     Vermont.    Virginia.    Washington     West Virginia     Wisconsin     Wyoming

Latest World and USA Model:

(Note: Click on the heading to get a page of past charts for that heading)

Here is a background document on Fermi Calculations that will enhance the comments below

Download (PDF, 86KB)

March 29:

Update 2:

Any Doubt? (been plotting this for completeness, you can compare it with my earlier graphs, before NY was an issue)  (If you look carefully at the shape, you can recognize the peak for New York superimposed on my peak for the rest of the country I’ve added a second graph to illustrate this)

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Update 1:

The international update should be completed any minute. The reason this is important is because if the peak is today, it means that the “BIG USA Reported Cases Model” nailed this.
You are going to need to be able to tell people in simple words what we have accomplished. My wife just asked me, and here was my reply:
“I just predicted the peak in reported Covid-19 cases in the USA by completing one of the largest Fermi calculations of my life.”
That’s why I put the “Fermi Calculations” document up. Y’all should read it. Then you will understand better, and be able to explain it to some degree to your friends. (**I also came up with a short description in a later post.
I often tell my students that they don’t truly understand something unless they can explain it to their parents in the car, or their second grade sibling. So let me give that a crack:
“Dr Frank did a massive calculation in order to predict the day when the Covid-19 epidemic would be at its worst in the USA. He put the prediction in public weeks in advance, and showed a bunch of people his progress throughout the whole process. Lots of people learned lots of science and math, it was a ton of fun, and many people stopped being afraid of the epidemic. Hundreds of people from around the country chipped in (even from other countries), providing him data and helping him to manage the process online.”

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March 29 Comment on Fermi Calculations

Fermi calculations are very powerful!

Over a year in advance I did a Fermi calculation which predicted that Trump would be elected president, and I posted it on Fb. People said I was crazy, even my friends doubted me. I am a Libertarian, and was supporting Rand Paul at the time. Trump wasn’t even yet the nominee.

But I went with the math. It was 2 to 1.

As the year progressed and the election approached, the calculations only became more and more clear (just like in they have in this case). Try as I might, no one would believe me.

 

Covid-19 “US Deaths Tracking”

Worldwide Models

Note: for worldwide models we are only adding the latest graphs. We are not keeping updated records and comments as we are doing for the states.

Covid-19 “Quick Look at Australia”

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Covid-19 “Quick Look at France”

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Covid-19 “Model Update for S Korea”

 

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Covid-19 “Italy Model Update”

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Covid-19 “Quick Look at India”

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Covid-19 “Model Update for Iran”

Just added data, but also marked the inflection point in the graph. When things settle down, I can teach y’all the calculus that makes inflection points quantitatively obvious (not just visually).
The inflection point is where the progress of Iran’s epidemic suddenly deviated from a model it had followed dead on for weeks. So we suspected a significant second infection.

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Covid-19 “Model Update for the UK”

Sounding the alarm. Just added data. Cases up, in tandem with deaths. Time to pray for a small infection.

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Covid-19 Model Spain

 

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Covid-19 Model for Cambodia

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Covid-19 Model for the Philippines

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Covid-19 Model for the Netherlands

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