What We Still Don’t Know About Plate Tectonics

Nature rarely uses one mechanism when three will do. We know the rules well; the surprises live at the edges. Small temperature changes can move entire ecosystems.

What worked

The math is elegant, but the instrument is the real hero. Measurements improved, and the old model quietly stopped fitting. The experiment was cheap, clever and took eleven years. A good analogy carries you halfway and then needs to be dropped.

Most of the energy goes somewhere nobody looks at first. The data looked like noise until someone plotted it on a log scale.

A small example

Nature rarely uses one mechanism when three will do. The math is elegant, but the instrument is the real hero. Small temperature changes can move entire ecosystems. The data looked like noise until someone plotted it on a log scale.

• Separate model from reality
• Follow the error bars
• Check the scale
• Ask what was actually measured

Nature rarely uses one mechanism when three will do. The experiment was cheap, clever and took eleven years.

Context

Nature rarely uses one mechanism when three will do. The math is elegant, but the instrument is the real hero. The data looked like noise until someone plotted it on a log scale.

Small temperature changes can move entire ecosystems.

The math is elegant, but the instrument is the real hero. Nature rarely uses one mechanism when three will do.

The data looked like noise until someone plotted it on a log scale. A good analogy carries you halfway and then needs to be dropped.