Here is another example where an innocuous-seeming choice of assumptions will yield radically distinct conclusions—in this case, about the probability of a magnitude 9 earthquake in this part of Japan. The characteristic fit suggests that such an earthquake was nearly impossible—it implies that one might occur about every 13,000 years. The Gutenberg–Richter estimate, on the other hand, was that you’d get one such earthquake every three hundred years. That’s infrequent but hardly impossible—a tangible enough risk that a wealthy nation like Japan might be able to prepare for it.
