Earthquakes and predictions
In the past week or so, there were two earthquakes in Southern California, one in Northern California which triggered a tsunami warning, one in Alaska, and one in Japan. While most people at the office knew about the two in California they didn’t know about the others or many other smaller earthquakes that occur around the globe. I follow earthquakes as a hobby. The link provides a map to the US Geological Survey.
Lots of earthquakes raise questions about predictions. To understand predictions you have to understand something about probability theory. Probability theory is about math and the ability to predict what will happen in the future. Psychology has based an entire field about understanding probability.
Let's say you've got a coin and you flip it and call it in the air. 1/2 the time it will come out heads and half the time it will come out tails assuming the coin has an equal chance of landing on each side. Each time you flip it is an independent event. Each coin toss has nothing to do with the next coin toss. So if you flip the coin 50 times and it comes up heads the next time you flip the coin it has a 50% chance of coming up tails just as it did the first time.
Now getting back to the earthquakes...the US Geological Survey says that 81 percent of all earthquakes in the world will occur on the circum Pacific Seismic system off in the Pacific. So the series of earthquakes is just like that series of heads on that coin toss, a bunch of unrelated
Now eventually there's going to be a jackpot of an earthquake on the San Andreas series of faults. That's about several hundred miles of fault lines and sometime within the next 30 years or so there should be a magnitude 8 or greater earthquake. The recent series of earthquakes doesn't seem related to the San Andreas and the longer the time is from the earthquakes and the more and varied they are from the Southern California area the less likely it is related.
Now I used the term "jackpot" for a reason. People have a habit of connecting unrelated events. This leads to all the conspiracy theories I read about on the internet. Someone sees a full moon and weird things happen (this is my peresonal favorite and the one I use the most apart from "I'm feeling lucky") and the full moon must be the cause of all the weird things. So on Thursday June 16th when all hell was breaking out in the office I called and asked if there was a full moon. There wasn't. The full moon isn't until the 22nd this month. So the 8:00 am who didn't want me to look at his sister's medications and was threatening to call his attorney or the 9:00 am who's appointment had to be cancelled for the third time because the interpreter didn't show up and could only get to the office an hour after I would be done for the day and the 10:00 who threatened to try to squeeze herself through the office window to "rip the face off" the office staff person asking her to fill out more paperwork. These events I attributed to the non-existent full moon. Others will attribute this silliness to the subsequent earthquake. Others will decide the office is "cursed." Actually there is a different office that has been cursed by gypsies but that's a running joke at the office now. Others will decide it's me or one of the other doctors. Some will change to a different outfit because it's "unlucky." These events are all unrelated. People make them seem related.
Now it's important to do some basic planning if you live in California for earthquakes. Having an earthquake kit in your car is a great idea. The old idea of standing in a doorway is a great way of getting your fingers smashed and the better idea is to stand in a hallway or to get under some sturdy furniture. Running out of a house is a bad thing and you get hit by debris. Most of the time you can just ride out the shaking and cover your head. When the shaking stops put on shoes and watch out for glass. Be careful when opening up cabinets because everything shifts. It may not be where you left it. The more you can plan the better things will be. The less you scurry around running around in circles the less likely you will get hurt. People up in Santa Clarita who took off after the Northridge earthquake in 1994 got hurt as freeways and roads were collapsing. Wait until everything stops shaking and there is some light if it is dark. Get a first aid kit and a manual. If you live in an area where there are some major disasters, have camping gear. Have a plan. You may not know when the next earthquake is coming even if your goldfish and puppy is acting weird and everyone around you is crazy, but you can certainly get everyone calm, have extra fish food and puppy food on hand and get everyone settled down while sanity resumes.
