託布勒係1969年舉行嘅國際地理聯合會定性方法委員會會議上首次提出咗呢個開創性嘅諗法，後尾佢喺1970年將呢個諗法發表出嚟。雖然講出嚟好簡單，但是呢個諗法嘅意義深遠。如果無呢樣嘢，「原則上地球表面任何地方嘅各種狀況都能喺任何小區域裏便出現。通過賦予屬性畀面狀對象嚟描述佢的近似均質嘅區域將唔會存在。地形表面會亂曬坑咁，度度都係無窮大嘅坡度，並且啲表面嘅輪廓會無限密集兼且扭曲。空間分析，甚至乎生活本身，都係冇可能嘅。」
Tobler first proposed this groundbreaking idea at a meeting of the Committee on Qualitative Methods of the International Geographical Union in 1969 and later published it in 1970. It's easy to say, but the idea is profound. Without such a thing, "in principle, conditions anywhere on the surface of the earth could occur in any small area. An area that describes the near-homogeneity of a polygon object by assigning attributes to it will not exist. The surface of the terrain is littered with craters, with infinite slopes everywhere, and some of the contours of the surface are infinitely dense and distorted. Spatial analysis, or even life itself, is impossible. 」