Rudolf Falb
Encyclopedia
Obdach
Obdach is a municipality in the district of Judenburg in Styria, Austria....
(Styria, Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
; died September 29, 1903 in Schöneberg
Schöneberg
Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg....
, German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
) was an Austrian popularizer of natural history who concerned himself with earthquakes, meteorology
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
and also with evolutionary linguistics
Evolutionary linguistics
Evolutionary linguistics is the scientific study of the origins and development of language. The main challenge in this research is the lack of empirical data: spoken language leaves practically no traces. This led to an abandonment of the field for more than a century...
. He developed the lunisolar flood hypothesis of earthquakes and volcanism
Volcanism
Volcanism is the phenomenon connected with volcanoes and volcanic activity. It includes all phenomena resulting from and causing magma within the crust or mantle of a planet to rise through the crust and form volcanic rocks on the surface....
, based on the concept of subterranean lava tides, which the academic community thoroughly refuted even during his lifetime; nevertheless he attained considerable popularity through apparently correct predictions of several seismic events. Falb's lasting legacy is that he popularized the concept of extraterrestrial influences of geophysical phenomena, even though his concepts regarding the origins of earthquakes were wrong.
Priest and teacher
Falb, a miller's son, attended school at St. Lambrecht's AbbeySt. Lambrecht's Abbey
St. Lambrecht's Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in the village of Sankt Lambrecht in the Styrian Grebenzen nature reserve in Austria. The monastery is located 1,072 meters above sea level.-History:...
and then studied theology at the University of Graz
University of Graz
The University of Graz , a university located in Graz, Austria, is the second-largest and second-oldest university in Austria....
. He was ordained as a Catholic priest
Priesthood (Catholic Church)
The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
in 1862 and briefly served as a chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
in Kainach bei Voitsberg
Kainach bei Voitsberg
Kainach bei Voitsberg is a municipality in the district of Voitsberg in Styria, Austria....
and then in pastoral care
Pastoral care
Pastoral care is the ministry of care and counseling provided by pastors, chaplains and other religious leaders to members of their church or congregation, or to persons of all faiths and none within institutional settings. This can range anywhere from home visitation to formal counseling provided...
. However he soon became a teacher for religion and German language at the merchants' academy in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
where Peter Rosegger
Peter Rosegger
Peter Rosegger was an Austrian poet from the province of Styria. He was a son of a farmer and grew up in the forests and fields. Rosegger went on to become a most productive poet and author as well as an insightful teacher and visionary...
was one of his pupils. Falb became estranged from Catholicism during this time, renouncing his priesthood in 1866. (He converted to Protestantism in 1872).
The lunisolar flood theory
Falb relocated to PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
where he obtained a tutor position in a noble family. This supplied him with sufficient funds to study mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
at the Charles University
Charles University in Prague
Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe and is also considered the earliest German university...
, and later geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. There is no record of him having obtained an academic degree at either institution.
In 1868 Falb started the popular astronomy magazine, Sirius and began to develop his "lunisolar flood theory", published in 1869. A central point of this hypothesis stated earthquakes to be caused by tidal forces acting on subterranean lakes of lava
Lava
Lava refers both to molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption and the resulting rock after solidification and cooling. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at...
(causing earthquakes) and its upwelling through the earth's crust
Crust (geology)
In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle...
(causing volcanic eruptions). The strength of these forces being predictable from the positions of the sun and the moon relative to each other, Falb proceeded to postulate "Critical Days" during which geophysical disasters should be more likely to occur. Subsequently he extended this hypothesis, which initially had strong connections to ideas put forward by the French methematician Alexis Perrey
Alexis Perrey
Alexis Perrey was a historical French seismologist and compiler of earthquake catalogs. He is considered a pioneer in this area, having published a note on Algerian earthquakes as early as 1848....
, to include long-term weather forecasting
Weather forecasting
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Human beings have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, and formally since the nineteenth century...
. Falb's hypothesis gained a high public profile when he made predictions that seemed to come true with the 1873 Belluno earthquake and an eruption at Mount Aetna in 1874.
However, the fundamental flaws of this hypothesis were the typical ones that disqualify it as a scientific theory
Scientific theory
A scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules that express relationships between observations of such concepts...
-- namely, insufficient specificity and precision of the predictions in relation to statistically expected levels, and inherent irrefutability, the combined effect being non-falsifiability
Falsifiability
Falsifiability or refutability of an assertion, hypothesis or theory is the logical possibility that it can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment...
. Falb considered days on which the moon was either full or new or in its nodal positions (i.e., four days per month) to be "Critical Days." To this were added the days of the equinox
Equinox
An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator...
(2 per year), and the days when Earth was in the apical positions
Apsis
An apsis , plural apsides , is the point of greatest or least distance of a body from one of the foci of its elliptical orbit. In modern celestial mechanics this focus is also the center of attraction, which is usually the center of mass of the system...
of its orbit (2 per year). Because Falb proceeded to claim each of these days to be preceded and followed by 2–3 days which he also considered critical (though less so), about a third of all days of the year met some criteria of "criticality" according to the lunisolar hypothesis. Moreover, by stating the actual occurrence of the predicted events not to be mandatory, Falb immunized himself against failures while he could (and would) always claim successes as being in support of his hypothesis -- a characteristic hallmark of predictions in pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
.
Falb also met the most determined resistance from the scientific establishment on geophysical grounds. Among his most determined and outspoken academic opponents were one of the founders of seismotectonics
Seismotectonics
Seismotectonics is the study of the relationship between the earthquakes, active tectonics and individual faults of a region. It seeks to understand which faults are responsible for seismic activity in an area by analysing a combination of regional tectonics, recent instrumentally recorded events,...
, Rudolf Hoernes
Rudolf Hoernes
Rudolf Hoernes was an Austrian geologist, born in Vienna. He studied under Eduard Suess and became a Professor of geology in Graz. He was known for his earthquake studies in 1878 and proposed a classification of earthquakes into subsidence earthquakes, volcanic earthquakes and tectonic earthquakes...
in Graz, the director of the Austrian Meteorological Service, Josef M. Pernter in Innsbruck, and the British inventor of the modern seismograph, John Milne
John Milne
For other uses, see John Milne .John Milne was the British geologist and mining engineer who worked on a horizontal seismograph.-Biography:...
.
This formidable and sustained scientific opposition notwithstanding, Falb influenced public opinion regarding seismic phenomena to such a degree that the two major German encyclopedias - the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie
Brockhaus Enzyklopädie
The Brockhaus Enzyklopädie is a German-language encyclopedia published by Brockhaus.The first edition originated in the Conversations-Lexikon mit vorzüglicher Rücksicht auf die gegenwärtigen Zeiten by Renatus Gotthelf Löbel and Christian Wilhelm Franke, published in Leipzig 1796-1808...
and Meyers Konversations-Lexikon
Meyers Konversations-Lexikon
Meyers Konversations-Lexikon or Meyers Lexikon was a major German encyclopedia that existed in various editions, and several titles, from 1839 until 1984, when it merged with the Brockhaus encyclopedia....
- both mentioned Falb and his theory in editions published during the late 19th century. He also gained a degree of notability in the English-speaking world. In London Murray's Magazine
Murray's Magazine
Murray's Magazine was a monthly magazine published by the John Murray publishing house. Sixty issues were published, from January 1887 through December 1891.It was priced at 1/- ....
published an appraisal of his earthquake predictions which was reprinted by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
Linguistic hypotheses
In 1877 Falb traveled in South America to study volcanic phenomena and became so fascinated with the native ethnic culture that he stayed much longer than he had planned. While in BoliviaBolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
he became a favorite of president Hilarión Daza
Hilarión Daza
Hilarión Daza Groselle was President of Bolivia from 1876 to 1879.A career military officer and native of Sucre, Daza came to power on May 4, 1876 in a coup against the constitutional president Tomás Frías. He was supported by much of the country's financial elite because of his avowal to maintain...
but had to leave the country when Daza was removed from office in 1879. After interludes in California and New York, Falb returned to Austria but then moved on to Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
where he married Petrine von Labitschburg, a primary school teacher. There he opened up another front of controversy in 1883–1888 when he published books on the Inca civilization
Inca civilization
The Andean civilizations made up a loose patchwork of different cultures that developed from the highlands of Colombia to the Atacama Desert. The Andean civilizations are mainly based on the cultures of Ancient Peru and some others such as Tiahuanaco. The Inca Empire was the last sovereign...
, postulating languages such as Aimara
Aymara language
Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...
and Quechua
Quechua languages
Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...
to be the "original languages of mankind" and linking them to the Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
. These writings did not gain the broad publicity which the lunisolar flood theory continued to enjoy.
Final years
Although increasingly affected by a paralytic spinal disease, Falb continued to publish "Critical Day" calendars (from 1888 onward) and other writings which became increasingly eccentric, including deluge myths and ice ages. With his wife and their five children he spent the following 15 years under increasingly dire economic conditions relocating between BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, his native town Obdach, Leipzig, and finally Berlin again where Rudolf Falb died in 1903, at an age of 65 years.
Biographies
- Heller HG. Rudolf Falb. Eine Charakterskizze nach persönlichen Erinnerungen. 1903, Friedrich Gottheiner (Berlin-Charlottenburg) 31 p.
- Biography of Rudolf Falb on the Obdach website (German)
External links
- Extreme volcanism - tides of the liquid core University of Vienna website on historical earthquake theories Archived