Abstract
THERE has been a trend recently to seek empirical relationships between certain geophysical parameters in an attempt to simplify a problem. In these days when there is a tendency to use the computer to try to solve everything, such an approach has much to commend it. There is, however, a danger in playing the “numbers game”, for by algebraic manipulation we can sometimes obtain additional relationships which may be far from valid even within restricted ranges of some of the variables. Again different workers may get incompatible relationships even though they approximately agree for certain ranges of the parameters. I shall give some examples.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Snyder, C. W., Neugebauer, M., and Rao, U. R., J. Geophys. Res., 68, 6361 (1963).
Wilcox, J. W., Schatten, K. H., and Ness, N. F., J. Geophys. Res., 72, 19 (1964).
Troitskaya, V. A., Solar Terrestrial Physics (Academic Press, 1967).
Nagata, T., and Fukunishi, H., Geophys. J., 15, 69 (1968).
Simmons, G., and England, A. W., Phys. Earth Planet. Intern., 2, 69 (1969).
Birch, F., J. Geophys. Res., 69, 4377 (1964).
Horai, K., and Simmons, G., Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 6, 359 (1969).
Anderson, O. L., Schreiber, E., Liebermann, R. C., and Soga, N., Rev. Geophys., 6, 491 (1968).
Horai, K., and Simmons, G., J. Geophys. Res., 75, 978 (1970).
Hoy, R. F., Blackwell, D. D., and Birch, F., Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 5, 1 (1968).
Horai, K., and Nur, A., J. Geophys. Res., 15, 1985 (1970).
Jacobs, J. A., Nature, 171, 835 (1953).
Jacobs, J. A., Nature, 185, 521 (1960).
Bullen, K. E., Mon. Not. Roy. Astro. Soc. Geophys., 5, 355 (1949).
Bullen, K. E., Mon. Not. Roy. Astro. Soc. Geophys., Suppl., 6, 50 (1950).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
JACOBS, J. Geophysical Numerology. Nature 227, 161–162 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/227161a0
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/227161a0
This article is cited by
-
Precession and the Earth's Magnetic Field
Nature Physical Science (1972)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.