A column on the history and culture of geophysics and science in general

Abstract

As this is written in early July 2012, I have been around the world a couple of times delivering the SEG Distinguished Instructor Short Course (DISC) titled Seismic Dispersion: A Somewhat Practical Guide to Frequency-dependent Phenomena. The year 2012 also marks exactly 20 years since my first Seismos column appeared in the pages of The Leading Edge. I have found sadly little time of late to write Seismos columns, what with the effort of writing the DISC book in 2010–2011, preparing slides in late 2011 and early 2012 and the actual travel this year to give the course. It is late in the year for a first column of 2012, but here it is.