Epitaph

"The Earth's Geodynamo is Dead"

   Obituary

                                               
The exact date of birth can not be exactly determined because its existence was created on doubtful theories before the turn of the 20th Century.  When the theory of the earth's magnetic field was generally accepted world wide around 1963, the condition of this theory further deteriorated until the 1998 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California. At this meeting it was announced by Eugene D. Richard that the end had come. It could not survive with the amount of current required to produce this field.  Also the ability to reverse fields by a switching action contributed to its demise. Now about the theory concerning the geodynamo. They are explained in a paper, written by Paul H. Roberts, of the University of California, in 1992.   There are two premises, one a homopolar dynamo, and the other a two-disk dynamo.  Both are wrong.  My theory is explained in my e-book on my websites.

It is survived by a countless number of theses written by aspiring young scientist hoping to make a name for themselves in the field of geophysics. It is also survived by many Ph. Ds trying to get that ultimate goal, the Nobel Prize.  In spite of the disappointment of the survivors, there is solace in the fact that the best scientist of the past could not unlock the secrets associated with the earth's magnetic field.  This includes Albert Einstein and many others.  It also includes 2000 hours on a super computer that finally had one reversal, which is not a complete cycle of reversals.

Predictions should never be taken at face value.  They must be verified by competent modern authority.  An example of this is the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) which is located in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington.  Together these two facilities cost $365 million and are to verify the existence of gravity waves predicted by Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity of 1916. ("LIGO's Mission of Gravity", Science, 27 April 2000, page 420, Vol. 288 No. 5465)

In the final analysis one must not look to the past but must look to the present for authority.  This is true not only in science but also in philosophy, medicine, law, and religion.