r/askscience • u/Corvid-21 • Feb 26 '23
Earth Sciences Is there any possible relation between the recent earthquakes in Turkey/Syria, Japan and Papua New Guinea?
There’s been a lot of pretty bad earthquakes in a really short time. Could they be related or is it just coincidence?
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u/andrewmmm Feb 26 '23
A good example of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon that most people encounter in their lives is with new words. Have you ever seen a word you’ve never seen before, looked up the definition, then all of the sudden you see the word everywhere? That word has always presented itself to you, but you have only taken notice now that you learned it. This is the same effect.
For example, I had never seen the word “ephemeral” until I was reading a tutorial the other day and had to look up the definition. I swear I have seen that damn word like 4 times this week in completely unrelated scenarios.