Comments on The Jupiter Effect

Several statements, on which the recent book The Jupiter Effect is based, are invalid: The planets will not be “aligned” in 1982, and such an alignment has no effect on solar activity; planetary tides on the Sun are negligible; tides raised on the Sun by Venus, Earth, and Jupiter have a period of 4 mo, not 11 yr, and Wood's curve has no physical justification; there are not more sunspots visible at the eastern limb of the Sun than at the western one; the mean number of sunspots is the same at Venus' inferior and superior conjunctions; the influence of solar flares on sudden changes in the Earth's rotation and on earthquakes is not proved. This leads to the conclusion that there is no evidence for a correlation between planetary positions and earthquakes. The “Jupiter effect” does not exist.