Progress in Surface and Membrane Science Vol 7
Progress in Surface and Membrane Science Vol 7
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表面与膜科学进展第 7 卷
DOI：
10.1088/0031-9112/25/6/035
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发表时间：
1974
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
A. Stoneham
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
A. Stoneham
这本书是一本关于古地磁学的有价值的著作：通过测定岩石的剩磁来解释地质时期地球磁场变化的记录。虽然作者的帐户的现代发展的主题是有点粗略，他调查和总结了目前已知的数据在不同的大陆相当成功，这将是非常有用的工人在这一领域。这本书的困难在于，作为一个直截了当的叙述，它是有能力的，也是最有用的。然而，当困难的理论问题出现时，作者似乎是肤浅的。例如，他认为，由于迄今为止几乎没有证据表明地磁场的强度在地质时期发生了任何逐渐变化，因此可以排除地核是由于铁的逐渐沉降而生长的想法。但是发电机理论中的核心半径根本不是简单地与场强有关。通过磁雷诺数，其中出现的半径，一个标准存在是否发电机行动将发生或不发生，但其强度完全取决于能量馈入。此外，McElhinny博士是一个被称为“科学方法”的神话思想的信徒。（地球过去平均磁场的）非偶极假说是一个“非科学假说”。并不能预测可观测到的地球物理效应无法通过独立的观察进行验证。现在，物理学家们有时有点过于急于证明他们的困难学科与实验室物理学（变量可以被控制和隔离）一样“科学”，他们倾向于强调他们正在按照无可挑剔的科学程序进行。我自己并不认为认为在地质时代的某段时期内平均地磁场不是偶极的有什么好处，但是如果有一个更有想象力的人这样认为，那么世界上所有的科学方法都不会消除它。
This book is a valuable account of palaeomagnetism: the deciphering of the record of changes in the earth's magnetic field through geological time from the determinations of the remanent magnetization of rocks. While the author's account of the modern development of the subject is somewhat sketchy, he surveys and summarizes what is at present known from the data in different continents with considerable success and it will be of great use to workers in this field. The difficulty with the book is that as a straightforward account of what is definitely known in the subject it is competent and most useful. When, however, difficult theoretical questions come up, the author seems to be superficial. For example, he argues that because there is little evidence, as yet, for any gradual change in the intensity of the geomagnetic field through geological time, the idea that the core has grown by the gradual settling of the iron can be excluded. But the radius of the core in dynamo theory is not at all simply related to the field intensity. Through the magnetic Reynolds number, in which the radius appears, a criterion exists as to whether dynamo action will occur or not occur, but its intensity depends entirely on the energy fed in. Moreover, Dr McElhinny is a believer in a mythical idea called'the scientific method'. The nondipole hypothesis (of the earth's past mean magnetic field) is'a nonscientific hypothesis... does not predict observable geophysical effects... cannot be checked by independent observations'. Now geophysicists are sometimes a little overanxious to prove that their difficult subject is as' scientific'as laboratory physics (when variables can be controlled and isolated) and they are prone to emphasize that they are proceeding by impeccable scientific procedures. I do not myself see any virtue in supposing the mean geomagnetic field has for some period of geological time been other than dipolar, but if some more imaginative person does, all the scientific method in the world will not banish it. s K RUNCORN