The observed properties of Fast Radio Bursts
  I present an empirical study of the properties of fast radio bursts (FRBs):
Gigahertz-frequency, dispersed pulses of extragalactic origin. I focus my
investigation on the sample of seventeen FRBs detected at the Parkes radio
telescope with largely self-consistent instrumentation. Of this sample, six are
temporally unresolved, eight exhibit evidence for scattering in inhomogeneous
plasma, and five display potentially intrinsic temporal structure. The
characteristic scattering timescales at a frequency of 1 GHz range between
0.005 ms and 32 ms; moderate evidence exists for a relation between FRB
scattering timescales and dispersion measures. Additionally, I present
constraints on the fluences of Parkes FRBs, accounting for their uncertain
sky-positions, and use the multiple-beam detection of FRB 010724 (the Lorimer
burst) to measure its fluence to be $800\pm400$ Jy ms. FRBs, including the
repeating FRB 121102, appear to manifest with a plethora of characteristics,
and it is uncertain at present whether they share a common class of progenitor
object, or arise from a selection of independent progenitors.
