Year: 1975
In previous papers the author applied Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and 130 years of real-time data to a proposed model of the earth's main magnet. The magnetic field was shown to be decaying exponentially with a half-life of only 1,400 years. This fact puts a severe limitation on the age of the earth. The present value of the power loss from the magnet was evaluated at 813 megawatts. This new paper employs those results to compute the total energy which will be lost during the remaining life of the magnet. Because there is no other source of energy, this is an indirect means of computing the total amount of energy in the earth's present magnetic field. If this theory is valid, an overall check can now be made on the theory by getting an independent evaluation of the total energy in the magnetic field of an idealized "equivalent" magnet. This equivalent magnet, being permanent, does not involve the decay, conductivity, heat loss, etc., associated with the computation about the real magnet. Such a check has been achieved in this paper. This provides an unyielding veriftation of the decay properties of the earths field, and of the implications of these facts for the age of the earth.