Hello everyone!
My name is Gu Jicheng.
Earthquakes are one of the most common natural disasters. Like the current plague covid-19，a distructive earthquake does not distinguish between national borders, cultures, race or gender and brings tremendous losses to human lives and property. However, the difference is that a pandemic only comes once in so many years, and scientists from all over the world will immediately mobilize to develop a vaccine and cure to combat it. But what about earthquakes? The mainstream seismologists in the world today believe that earthquakes occur unpredictably, given only a certain probability of happening. In a sense, it is as if epidemiologists gave up the development of the cure for the pandemic.
I was admitted to the Department of Physics of Peking University in 1960 and graduated from the Department of Geophysics in 1966. Then, I entered the Institute of Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to engage in seismic source physics and earthquake prediction methods. From the Xingtai Earthquake in 1966 to the Tangshan Earthquake in 1976 in China, I participated directly and indirectly in research and field inspections. I learned valuable lessons from the successful prediction of the Haicheng earthquake in 1975 by Chinese seismologists, and the failure of the subsequent underreporting of the Tangshan earthquake in 1976. I strongly feel that the long-term, medium-term, and short-term predictions of earthquakes are critical. However, what matters most is the prediction of imminent earthquakes, which involves predicting an earthquake's time, location (space), and magnitude a few hours before its occurrence. Therefore, I collected and sorted out the imminent precursory phenomena of destructive earthquakes that were available all over the world at that time, and established my theoretical model of physical explanation of imminent precursory phenomena after studies of these data. Based on this theory, I can understand why some earthquakes are predicted to be successful, while others fail; Based on this theory, I figured out how to distinguish between true and false anomalies; According to this theory, I also know what is wrong with the existing observation methods and need to be improved; Also based on this theory, I found that there are some physical quantities that can be observed as a new means of impending earthquake precursors.
After the establishment of my full set of prediction theories, in the past decades, some theories have been well verified in practice and successful predictions have been made.
Therefore, I firmly believe that earthquakes are predictable!
In 1980, I came to the United States and worked successively in the Div. of Engineering of Brown University, Div. of Applied Science of Harvard University, and Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences of Massachusetts Institute of Technology on fracture mechanics and source physics, nonlinear system stability and tribology. Research further improved my theory of imminent precursors. Over the past few decades, my theories have been very successfully confirmed in some of earthquake-prediction practices.
Furthermore, in 2019, I theoretically discovered and demonstrated the existence of seismic precursory waves before any earthquake and derived its closed, analytical solution mathematically. This reinforced my view that earthquakes can be predicted (that the larger the earthquake, the better the prediction).
Therefore, with the strong support of some like-minded scientists and people with lofty ideals, I officially registered and established a non-profit scientific research institution specializing in earthquake prediction—the GU Institute of Earthquake Prediction in Massachusetts of the USA. Its purpose is to predict destructive earthquakes through:
1. The prediction of time, location, and magnitude before a significant earthquake. The current focus is the prediction of a magnitude 9 earthquake in California. According to decades of long-term and outstanding observational research by seismologists from the USGS in the United States, it is believed that a magnitude 9 earthquake may occur in this place. However, they can only give probabilistic predictions. In other words, the occurrence of this big earthquake may be the next hour or the next decade. What our research has to do is to give an accurate prediction of its time, location, and magnitude.
2. The prediction of earthquake types. When a significant earthquake occurs, people ask in horror, "Will there be a bigger earthquake in the future? Is this already the mainshock?" We have to answer this question by evaluating if the earthquake is a main-shock-aftershock type, a twin type, or even a strong earthquake swarm.
3. The prediction of strong aftershocks. When telling people that this big earthquake is already the mainshock-aftershock type, the prediction of the occurrence time of strong aftershocks is still of great significance to the safety of disaster relief personnel.
4. The prediction of the development trend and characteristics of an earthquake sequence.
5. The prediction of the latest strong aftershock. For instance, after judging a strong aftershock, we may determine that there will be no more strong aftershocks. This has positive significance for rebuilding the homeland.
Our institute is an international platform open to scientists and technology enthusiasts in various disciplines around the world, especially seismologists and amateur technology enthusiasts who are interested and confident in earthquake prediction. It is an open platform based on the Internet, a legal non-profit scientific research platform. Earthquake prediction is everyone's common cause.
From the very beginning of the establishment of the institute, it immediately received strong support and participation from many international scientists, engineers, and charitable people and organizations. I also sincerely welcome friends who have heard my speech to share, support and participate, and work together to challenge the common enemy of mankind, earthquake prediction.
Thank you all.
Gu Jicheng
Boston, MA
November 19, 2020
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