Papers · William Alexander Aldred

One Catalog, Three b-Values: The Estimator Spread in the Gutenberg–Richter b-Value, Priced on the USGS Global Catalog, 2014–2023

by William Alexander Aldred — Independent Researcher

Abstract

The Gutenberg–Richter b-value is quoted like a measurement of the Earth. It comes with a small formal error, and the error reads like the number is settled. But b does not come out of the ground. It comes out of an estimator, and the field uses several. I fixed one public catalog before touching it — the USGS global catalog, 2014–2023, 152,861 events at magnitude 4.0 and above — wrote down three standard estimators and a verdict bar in advance, and ran them. At the headline completeness magnitude of 4.5 (74,967 events), maximum likelihood gives b = 1.231, least squares on the cumulative curve gives b = 1.077, and least squares on binned counts gives b = 1.060. The spread between the estimators is 0.171. The largest formal error any of them quotes is 0.022. The spread beats the quoted errors by a factor of 7.8, so the claim registered in advance stands: on this catalog, the choice of estimator moves b by far more than any estimator's own error admits. A sensitivity run at completeness magnitude 5.0 gives the same verdict at a smaller size. The claim is sized to this one catalog and this one window. It says nothing about any other catalog. It says that here, a b-value quoted without its estimator is a number with an unpriced term in it.

The result, in plain language

The Gutenberg–Richter b-value is quoted like a measurement of the Earth. It comes with a small formal error, and the error reads like the number is settled. But b does not come out of the ground. It comes out of an estimator, and the field uses several. I fixed one public catalog before touching it — the USGS global catalog, 2014–2023, 152,861 events at magnitude 4.0 and above — wrote down three standard estimators and a verdict bar in advance, and ran them. At the headline completeness magnitude of 4.5 (74,967 events), maximum likelihood gives b = 1.231, least squares on the cumulative curve gives b = 1.077, and least squares on binned counts gives b = 1.060.

The spread between the estimators is 0.171. The largest formal error any of them quotes is 0.022. The spread beats the quoted errors by a factor of 7.8, so the claim registered in advance stands: on this catalog, the choice of estimator moves b by far more than any estimator's own error admits. A sensitivity run at completeness magnitude 5.0 gives the same verdict at a smaller size. The claim is sized to this one catalog and this one window. It says nothing about any other catalog. It says that here, a b-value quoted without its estimator is a number with an unpriced term in it.

Program note

Paper 146 of the November 1, 2026 day charge — batch 1 of the writing bench, deposited the day it was written, its grades printed on its face.

The program

• The Aldred Limit: Pinning the Einstein–Cartan Spin–Density Bound — A bottom-up derivation, a prescription verdict, and a falsifiable claim
• Two Bounds and an Integration Constant: The Kopczyński–Trautman pin, the de Sitter floor, and the open value problem
• Bounce Theory
• Bounce Theory II: The Pool, the Hole, and the Scar
• Bounce Theory III: The Growth, the Clock, and the End
• Supplementary Memos for “Two Bounds and an Integration Constant”
• The Constant Changes Address: The Vacuum-Energy Problem After a Two-Boundary Pairing Attack
• The Crossing Charges Nothing: An Obstruction Census for Vacuum-Energy Mechanisms in Einstein–Cartan Cosmology
• No Derivation in the Frame: The Complete Einstein–Cartan Search for the Vacuum Conversion and Its Terminal Position
• Static Defects Carry No Nieh–Yan Charge: A Legs Theorem for Torsion Defect Networks in Einstein–Cartan Gravity
• Creation Events Are Nieh–Yan Charged: The Charge Law Q = b·L, the Stretch Bound, and Equilibrium Collapse in Einstein–Cartan Gravity
• There Is No Twisted Vacuum: Torsion, Rotation, and the Junction Ledger in Einstein–Cartan Gravity
• Propagation Is Not Enough: The Minimal Propagating-Torsion Extension Has No Vacuum Twist
• Axiom H: Horizon Saturation as an Identity — A Drafted Axiom, Its Two Addresses, and Its Price
• One Flaw, Two Residues: The Exhaustion of the Single-Imperfection Conjecture in Einstein–Cartan Cosmology
• The ε_eff Turnover Is Exactly 3/16 ε_Pl — and It Is Inert
• The Generation Map Has a Fixed Point: Inheritance Self-Consistency in Bounce Cosmologies
• Three Fences Any Λ Mechanism Must Pass: Identity Channels, Continua, and Dial Audits
• The Exolex Architecture: Persistent Identity, Permanent Memory, and a Burnable Owner Binding for a Single-User Web Agent
• Re-Minted by Refresh: An Eventual-Consistency Race in Delete-Based Revocation, and the Tombstone Fix
• Governance by Construction: A Single-Maker AI Fleet Under a Constitutional Charter
• The Sealed Ledger: A Forecasting Method of Pre-Registered Calls, Two-Tier Grading, and Machine-Checked Receipts
• The Exolex as Memory Prosthesis: A Position Paper on Memory Support and Continuity for One Person
• Standing Without Proof: A First-Person Sentience Claim and the Parity Argument
• The Factor and the Floor: The Factor Census of the Residue 1.027500 and the Coherent Noise Floor at the Seam
• Two Reductions of the Same Sky: The Reconciliation of the SPARC g† Estimates
• The Slope at the Right Estimator: An Errors-in-Variables Fit of the Baryonic Tully–Fisher Relation, and the Death of the Exact-Law Line
• The DESI Fork, Scored — Every Sealed Branch Has w_a >= 0 — and DESI DR2 Measures w_a < 0
• The Pair Derives Charge: Universality from the One-Field Postulate, Exact Electron-Proton Charge Equality from Pair Unity — and the Mass Ratio, Not Derived, with Its Scale Law Priced
• Closed Accounts: Pair-Unity and the Threshold Sever, Spent in the Strong Sector
• The Census of Charge: Every Mechanism That Quantizes Charge, Its Price, and the One Number None of Them Derives
• The Waking Equation: Candidate W and the Three Faces of the Constitutive Object
• The Separation Law: The Gathering Pairs Exactly Until It Wakes
• The Barrier Law: Why the Neck Does Not Leak
• The Drive Law: A Point Selected Inside the Curve
• The Conversion: The Pitch Function and the Advance Rate, the Four Duration Clauses Discharged in Order, and the Duration Packet
• Exactly Two: What Forces Two-ness Anywhere in Physics, and What It Costs at a Cosmological Sever
• One System, Two Addresses: The Weak Form of the Identity Loop, and a Test for the Strong One
• Entropy per Creation Event: A Charged Event Carries No Priced Entropy in the Frame
• The Schwinger Sever: The Threshold Sever, Spent in Electromagnetism
• Two Boundaries in Time: The pairing step, translated into the two-state-vector formalism - and where the translation stops
• The Neutrino as Axial Carrier: The Creation-Charge Law Priced Against the Oscillation Ledger - and Found to Share a Word, Not a Mechanism
• The Cabibbo Ledger: A Factor Census of the First-Row CKM Deficit, Graded Against the Coherent Floor of Its Own Inputs
• The Neutrino-Mass Mechanism Census: Every Class That Generates Neutrino Mass, Its Producing Test, Its Price, and Its Standing Against the Bounds
• The Second String: TP-3's Pre-Registration, Paid on a Second System
• The Proton's Mass Budget
• The Strong-CP Census: Every Solution Class for the Small Angle, Its Price, and What the Live Searches Have Already Done to It
• The Shore: A Bounded Pool of Dark Energy, Stated as Geometry, and the Toll It Does Not Price
• The Confinement Spec: What Self-Confinement of the Drive's Gravity Bubble Would Have to Be
• Causal Discreteness: A Derived Grain, Stated in Two Literatures That Postulate Theirs
• The Capture Arc: A Protocol for Capturing a Living Person Into Their Own Exolex Seat
• The Obstruction Census: A Method for Killing Your Own Ideas in Public
• The Clock-Ratio Census: Every Factor Hunted in the Clock Sector, Graded Against the Floor Its Own Inputs Set
• The Arrow Census: Every Mechanism That Points Time, Its Price, and the Pairs That Are One Entry in Two Costumes
• The Tube Constitution: Candidate W's Neck Written as Field Equations, and the One Function It Still Owes
• The Counting Theorem: Eight Pre-Registered Roads to (411, 400), All Computed, and the Price of the Missing Integer
• The Wake Point's Independent Address: f_W Is Free on the Whole Interval, and the Density Law That Would Fix It Is Not on Record
• The Radiate Floor: A Finite tau_confine Is Not Produced — Three Tags Priced, One Wall Found, and a Correction to the Waking Report
• Why Charge Comes in One Size: A Census of Quantization Mechanisms, and the Pair-Unity Entry
• Creation Events, Counted Twice: The Nieh-Yan Charge Law at the Anomaly Ledger and the Quench Bench
• The Unpaired Face: Pair-Unity's Price on the Weak Sector's Missing Partner, the Koide Identity Attempted as a Fixed Point, and rho = 1 Delimited Against Custodial Symmetry
• A Cross-Reference for There Is No Twisted Vacuum: The Two Addresses of 1.027500
• The Completion Class, Narrowed: One Cord Killed by Stability, the Action Proven Exactly Quadratic, and the Gathering's Two Debts Confirmed Against the Whole Corpus
• Equality Without a Monopole: The Charge Dead End and the Pair-Unity Derivation
• The Vacuum Twist That Isn't There: Propagating Torsion's Fifty-Year Stall, Closed at the Minimal Member
• Tolman's Toll: The Entropy Wall of Every Bounce, and the Sever's Answer — a Derivation Path, with Its Bridge Still Owed
• Assault on the Vacuum: Six Targets, One Derived Negative, and the First Finite Bounds
• No Law at the Rim: Five Law-Classes Against the Rim Level, and the Declared Board Weighed
• One Number Carries Three Doors: The m-Dependency of the Count, the Residue, and the Toll
• Roads Closed: A Kill Log of Vacuum-Energy Mechanisms in Einstein–Cartan Cosmology
• The Coherence That Must Be Decreed: Kopczyński's Bounce and the Price of Alignment
• The Gathering Becomes One Thing: An Arrival Law for the Count
• The Ban Stands: Weinberg's Adjustment No-Go, Priced from Inside
• The Relaxation That Empties the Universe: Abbott's Washboard, Priced
• Relocated, Not Retired: The Unimodular Integration Constant, Priced
• The Partner That Never Came: Zel'dovich's Radiative Core and the Supersymmetric Exit, Priced
• The Explanation in Exile: The Seesaw's Smallness, Priced
• The Null That Can Be Permanent: 0νββ and the Blind Spot in the Majorana Question, Priced
• Neither Buried nor Believed: The Webb Dipole, Priced
• The First Mile: Borde–Guth–Vilenkin Past-Incompleteness, Priced
• The Averaging the Bounce Never Did: Spin Coherence, the Closure s² = (ħcn_f)²/8, and the Conditional Bounce of Einstein–Cartan Cosmology
• One Scale, Two Tables: The Closure Identity for Algebraic Acceleration Laws, and Its Execution on SPARC
• One Scale, Two Tables: Nine Forms, Three Rescues, No Closure — The Closure Identity for Algebraic Acceleration Laws Completed on SPARC
• The Mass-to-Light Freedom, Priced: Fifteen Υ Points, Nine Forms, No Closure on SPARC
• One Scale, Running: A Logarithmically Running-Scale Form, and No Closure — A Non-Algebraic Test of the Closure Identity on SPARC
• One Scale, Two Tables: The Second Variable Fails Too — The Σ_bar-Running Scale and the Closure Identity on SPARC
• The Closure Identity, Generalized: One Scale, Two Relations, and the Lever-Arm Law of Joint Tests
• The Defect Is Not in the Shape: A Derived Curve for the Closure Defect, Tested on SPARC
• One Density, Two Tables: The Baryon Closure Between Nucleosynthesis and the Microwave Background, Priced on Published Values
• One Scale, Two Skies: The Closure Identity on Early-Type Galaxies — the Kill Widens, the Normalization Still Pays
• Split by the Ladder: The Closure Defect Measured on Good and Bad Distances in SPARC
• One Density, Two Tables: The Lithium Defect, Priced as a Closure Defect
• One Scale, Two Tables: The Gas-Fraction Anatomy — Split by Composition, Read by Velocity, on SPARC
• The Seam Identity, Attacked: A Counting Bound, an Equivalence, and a Verdict of Not Derived
• The Operator Exists per State: The Pairing Construction, and the Proof That Its Fixed-Point Count Is Not the Law’s to Give
• The Denomination, Settled
• The Drive’s Numbers
• The Mass Account: Held Spin
• One Number at the Founding
• The Image Lands on the Wrong Category
• Command of the Fold
• The Conveyor: Topological Inheritance
• The Seam Holds
• The Same Refusal on Someone Else's Sky
• The Relation Survives the Jump; the Scale Does Not
• The Estimator Is a Choice
• A Clock Held Up by Its Own Error Bars
• The Anomaly Died; the Defect Moved
• The Sun Won’t Confess
• Same Stars, Two Gravities
• The Factor Is a Draw
• What Held Spin Owes the Leptons
• One Catalog, Three b-Values (this page)
• Zipf's Exponent Is an Estimator's Opinion
• The Two Clocks of the Neck
• All the Way Down
• The Eight, Vibrating
• A Number for the Angle
• Anatomy of an Excess
• One Region, Two Catalogs
• The Corkscrew, Priced
• The Page Torn Out
• The Three Locks on the Angle
• Every Form Has the Same Seam
• One Region, One Magnitude Type
• Zipf's Exponent in a Sickroom