+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 5 of 5

Find the time at which the difference in data points starts to increase

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    10-12-2009
    Location
    Santa Barbara, CA
    MS-Off Ver
    Excel 2003
    Posts
    4

    Find the time at which the difference in data points starts to increase

    Ok, a new conundrum...

    Lets say column A is "time", and it goes in intervals of every 0.2 min or so. Column B is the reading of an ion probe vs that time, and gives readings that start at zero (or close to it) and as the concentration in the trap increases, goes us to 100 or so. At a certain point, the concentration starts increasing rapidly....I want a formula to find this point. It is not life or death but it'd be pretty great.

    So basically, I need a formula that will scan column B and if the difference between row X and row X+1 in B is greater than, say, .5, return the corresponding time from column A. I want to know when the points start increasing by more than 0.5 every 0.2 minutes.

    The janky formula that I came up with (which is obviously horribly wrong) was:

    =IF((IMSUB(B2,B3)>.2)),A3,no)

    I don't know....that's the most horrible formula ever, eh? I just figured it would be something along these lines but as far as how to implement the formula I have NO idea.....help!! Thanks so much guys!

  2. #2
    Forum Expert shg's Avatar
    Join Date
    06-20-2007
    Location
    The Great State of Texas
    MS-Off Ver
    2003, 2010
    Posts
    40,678

    Re: Find the time at which the difference in data points starts to increase

    =INDEX(A1:A1000, MATCH(0.5, B2:B1000 - B1:B1000) + 2)

    The formula MUST be confirmed with Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
    Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate

  3. #3
    Registered User
    Join Date
    10-12-2009
    Location
    Santa Barbara, CA
    MS-Off Ver
    Excel 2003
    Posts
    4

    Re: Find the time at which the difference in data points starts to increase

    Ok, tried that..........I get a #value error, and when I trace the evaluation steps for it I see that for the second variable in the Match function, it returns 989 on my sheet.....which cannot be true.

    =INDEX($A$11:$A$1000, 989 + 2)
    is the result after the first 2 arguments are evaluated stepwise, and for this particular set of data the first row to have a difference >.5 is around 172, so I'm not sure where the 989 is coming from. After only evaluating the first step I can see that it's correctly calculating the differences between the rows, but maybe the problem is that the difference is not ever EXACTly 0.5?

    Thanks!

  4. #4
    Forum Expert shg's Avatar
    Join Date
    06-20-2007
    Location
    The Great State of Texas
    MS-Off Ver
    2003, 2010
    Posts
    40,678

    Re: Find the time at which the difference in data points starts to increase

    It does not need to be an exact match.

    Post a workbook.

  5. #5
    Forum Guru DonkeyOte's Avatar
    Join Date
    10-22-2008
    Location
    Northumberland, UK
    MS-Off Ver
    O365
    Posts
    21,531

    Re: Find the time at which the difference in data points starts to increase

    shg, will that work given the variances will be unsorted ?

    An alternative CSE assuming as stated times are in A and you wish to find first time:

    =MIN(IF(B2:B1000-B1:B999>0.5,A1:A999))
    confirmed with CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER

    Alternatively, non CSE version (no more efficient)

    =INDEX(A1:A999,MATCH(TRUE,INDEX(B2:B1000-B1:B999>0.5,0),0))

    above assumes times in A are sorted in Ascending order.

+ Reply to Thread

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts

Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO 3.6.0 RC 1