Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
The Rikitake two-disc system [10] has been proposed as a model of the Earth's magnetic dipole. Numerical integration of the system by Rikitake[10] and Allan [1] showed the phenomenon of polarity reversal which is seen in terrestrial paleomagnetic data [6]. Reversals in the simulations occurred at irregular and apparently unpredictable time intervals, in accord with the capricious character of the real data, though the agreement was qualitative rather than quantitative.