test please delete

[BrowneIssue]

Average dead fly incidence approx one every 4 cm from left to right and back and forth.

That gives us 1 dead fly in every 16 square cm.

[BrowneIssue]

That gives us 1 dead fly in every 16 square cm.

A square metre is 100 x 100 cm = 10,000 cm. Therefore, 625 dead flies per square metre.

[BrowneIssue]

15 square metres

@

625 dead flies per square metre

= approximately 9,375 dead flies.

[BrowneIssue]

approximately 9,375 dead flies.

That CANNOT be right!

[BrowneIssue]

I was probably sucking up 5 or 6 dead flies per second.

[BrowneIssue]

I was probably sucking up 5 or 6 dead flies per second.

I was actually actively vacuuming up there for about 20 minutes.

[BrowneIssue]

5 or 6 dead flies per second

for

20 minutes

= 6,600 dead flies.

[BrowneIssue]

Conclusion: there were between six and ten thousand dead flies in the loft.

, and thrice

[BrowneIssue]

So this was a poor estimate, by a factor of at least ten:

That's 600 dead flies hoovered up in the loft.

[BrowneIssue]

From this we can also conclude: I am a poor estimator of dead fly populations.