>>11476415Ok I am sure you have heard of the saying "It's raining cats and dogs". Well why would someone say that, what sense does it make?
This saying comes from Victorian England and the reason is came about was because every time it rained hard there would be cats and dogs falling from the sky. So was it raining cats and dogs?
Here we have two variables, variable A = rain, variable B=animals falling from the sky. Is A the cause of B? Yes but indirectly.
During the Victorian era buildings were built pretty close together and during the fall and during the early spring when the weather was cool animals would get on top of the roofs to huddle next to the chimneys for warmth, so when it rained hard they would slip off the rooftops and fall off the buildings.
So did A cause B? Yes but directly the x factor or x variable was the chimneys being used for warmth. So whenever you hear someone talk about an x-factor in science it means there is a previously unknown variable that was effecting the results not what was suspected before the experiment was conducted.
