Rudolf Falb
Rudolf Falb (born 14 April 1838 in
Obdach (
Styria,
Austrian Empire; died 29 September 1903 in
Schöneberg,
German Empire) was an Austrian popularizer of natural history who concerned himself with
earthquakes,
meteorology,
astronomy and also with
evolutionary linguistics. He developed the ''lunisolar flood hypothesis'' of
earthquakes and
volcanism, 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.
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