[Phys-L] Re: earthquakes +- critical thinking

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

Actually there was an article a number of years about how they had actually
triggered small earthquakes.  It was a special case however.  As I recall
they were pumping water into a fault region.  The water allowed a number of
very small quakes to happen.

But then what do you do about the big events like Krakatoa?

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> The Discovery Channel has been running programs about tsunamis.
>
> Near the end of one program, they interviewed some big-shot professor
> who wanted to reduce the risk by triggering small earthquakes.  He
> stood on the beach and said into the camera that you would need 10
> or maybe 100 magnitude-3 earthquakes to take the place of one
> magnitude-8 earthquake.
>
> I muttered something like "what an idiotic thing to say."  One of my
> relatives, who had been watching the program, said she didn't believe
> him; specifically, she didn't think he had any way of actually triggering
> the earthquakes.  I said that's not a strong argument;  that's just
> your opinion against his;  you can't *prove* there is no possible
> triggering mechanism.
>
> My point is that there's a much stronger argument -- an irrefutable
> *physics* argument -- that *proves* the proposed scheme cannot possibly
> work.
>
> This makes an amusing exercise ... definitely not a plug-and-chug
> exercise ... definitely not an ACT "science reasoning" question
> (i.e. 40 questions in 35 minutes).  So, what's the proof?
>
> ====
>
> It kinda makes you wonder what goes on at these TV companies.
> Obviously they don't do much in the way of fact-checking ... but
> the question is, why not?  I note that the discovery.com web site
> describes their company as "real-world media and entertainment".
> I guess the emphasis is on entertainment, not real-world.
>
> In some sense this is the mirror-image of my previous note about
> leap-seconds.  Neither leap seconds nor the lack of leap seconds
> is going to kill anybody (breathless claims to the contrary
> notwithstanding).  But tsunamis and earthquakes do kill people.
> Something that kills a few hundred thousand people is pretty
> serious, even if it happens only rather infrequently.
>
> This is why people need to be able to think for themselves.  You
> can't believe everything you're told ... but neither can you afford
> to disbelieve everything you're told.  You have to think.
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