Hello Everyone,
Determining whether meteorite falls has remained
constant over a given period of time is more difficult than it first
appears. At least other two variables have to be considered.
First, as I point out on my site, increasing
population density may account for an increase in reported falls. If the
fall rate truly is constant over say the past century, any increase in reported
falls may be more of a function of more people covering a given area of the
Earth's surface, than an actual increase in fall rate. An inverse
correlation between population density and fall rate would be much more
interesting.
Also, there may be the problem of time
sampling. Meteorites have been impacting the Earth for literally billions
of years. The time of recorded human history is so small in
comparison. The time that we have been interested in documenting
falls smaller still. Any perceived (or even documented) increase or
decrease in fall rate may simply be due to random fluctuations that, given a
longer period of time, may prove to just be so much "noise" rather than a
true signal.
Much like my seti-at-home screen saver
program. I sometimes see enormous changes in the frequency over a short
period of time but overall, the curve plots a rather flat line :-(
-Walter
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