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Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man
By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognize. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have ever understood the man.
Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story, setting it in the context of his family and interpersonal attachments, his academic career, and the history of seismology.
Among his colleagues Richter was known as intensely private, passionately interested in earthquakes, and iconoclastic. He was an avid nudist, seismologists tell each other with a grin; he dabbled in poetry. He was a publicity hound, some suggest, and more famous than he deserved to be. But even his closest associates were unaware that he struggled to reconcile an intense and abiding need for artistic expression with his scientific interests, or that his apparently strained relationship with his wife was more unconventional but also stronger than they knew. Moreover, they never realized that his well-known foibles might even have been the consequence of a profound neurological disorder.
In this biography, Susan Hough artfully interweaves the stories of Richter's life with the history of earthquake exploration and seismology. In doing so, she illuminates the world of earth science for the lay reader, much as Sylvia Nasar brought the world of mathematics alive in A Beautiful Mind .
Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story, setting it in the context of his family and interpersonal attachments, his academic career, and the history of seismology.
Among his colleagues Richter was known as intensely private, passionately interested in earthquakes, and iconoclastic. He was an avid nudist, seismologists tell each other with a grin; he dabbled in poetry. He was a publicity hound, some suggest, and more famous than he deserved to be. But even his closest associates were unaware that he struggled to reconcile an intense and abiding need for artistic expression with his scientific interests, or that his apparently strained relationship with his wife was more unconventional but also stronger than they knew. Moreover, they never realized that his well-known foibles might even have been the consequence of a profound neurological disorder.
In this biography, Susan Hough artfully interweaves the stories of Richter's life with the history of earthquake exploration and seismology. In doing so, she illuminates the world of earth science for the lay reader, much as Sylvia Nasar brought the world of mathematics alive in A Beautiful Mind .
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 2, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 28, 2022
I bought a book thinking it would cover the science and history of earthquakes. Instead the author spends the book talking about richter’s love affairs and the possibility he had aspergers. Waste of time
March 5, 2021
Wanders a bit and often gets a bit lost in the details.
August 8, 2013
I think I liked it Maybe. I'm at least certain that I'm glad I read it.
The deeper into it I got, the more annoyed I became as it felt more and more that I was being asked to share the author's cathartic (sp) experience of having gone through all of Richter's papers that are archived at Caltech. Although I never formally met RIchter, I did "meet" him when he came to the Seismo Lab during the May 1980 Mammoth Lakes sequence of earthquakes. He was exactly as Hough describes him in this book, but to be honest, Caltech is one of those places where there seem to be a higher than average number of peculiar, even difficult people. Thank goodness for Caltech
Am curious, why no mention of John Nordquist?
And, personally, I would have liked more detailed accounts of those earliest days of the Seismo Lab, the late '20s and '30s. I know that there are "proto-phase cards" from 1927 and 1928, I believe with times only for a Riverside station.... (I read paper records and did the phase cards from 1983 till they came to an end, and spend many happy hours over that drafting table in the Measuring Room.)
Regardless, the book resonates with my sense that observational scientists, even the greatest of them, do not get the respect and honor due them that seems to come more easily to theoretical scientists. I say this thinking also of Tycho Brahe, without whose observations the world would have had to wait a lot longer before seeing the likes of the work done by Kepler. And it's clear to me (having never thought of it like this) that Richter's work did indeed turn the seismology of the early 20th century into a truly quantitative science of the late 20th century.
Elementary Seismology is a great book.
The deeper into it I got, the more annoyed I became as it felt more and more that I was being asked to share the author's cathartic (sp) experience of having gone through all of Richter's papers that are archived at Caltech. Although I never formally met RIchter, I did "meet" him when he came to the Seismo Lab during the May 1980 Mammoth Lakes sequence of earthquakes. He was exactly as Hough describes him in this book, but to be honest, Caltech is one of those places where there seem to be a higher than average number of peculiar, even difficult people. Thank goodness for Caltech
Am curious, why no mention of John Nordquist?
And, personally, I would have liked more detailed accounts of those earliest days of the Seismo Lab, the late '20s and '30s. I know that there are "proto-phase cards" from 1927 and 1928, I believe with times only for a Riverside station.... (I read paper records and did the phase cards from 1983 till they came to an end, and spend many happy hours over that drafting table in the Measuring Room.)
Regardless, the book resonates with my sense that observational scientists, even the greatest of them, do not get the respect and honor due them that seems to come more easily to theoretical scientists. I say this thinking also of Tycho Brahe, without whose observations the world would have had to wait a lot longer before seeing the likes of the work done by Kepler. And it's clear to me (having never thought of it like this) that Richter's work did indeed turn the seismology of the early 20th century into a truly quantitative science of the late 20th century.
Elementary Seismology is a great book.
July 5, 2016
Even people who never have heard of Charles Richter associated his last name with earthquakes. Author Hough tries to bring to life the man behind the name. Well researched, the book dwells deeply into the diaries and documents left behind by Richter to try to set the background for such a groundbreaking event in seismology. As with most creative and extremely intelligent people, his life was a series of triumphs and severe setbacks, through which his closest relationships suffered. What is missing is the scientific aspect of his work and actual descriptions of the Richter scale. There are no example of how it works, and what it means in seismology or even and a measurement of earthquakes.
September 30, 2016
Geniuses with quirks are some of my favorite people and Charles Richter qualifies in every possible way.
This book does a great job of talking about the man, his career as a Seismologist and the scale for which he is known. I also learned alot about earthquakes, Autism and how research is conducted.
I really enjoyed this book. Admittedly I had to skim over some of the more technical areas, but those were very few.
The author did a great job of reconstructing a life that was only partially documented and when she made assumptions she freely admitted it. This guy was really interesting and very human; funny and insecure and weird but very smart.
This book does a great job of talking about the man, his career as a Seismologist and the scale for which he is known. I also learned alot about earthquakes, Autism and how research is conducted.
I really enjoyed this book. Admittedly I had to skim over some of the more technical areas, but those were very few.
The author did a great job of reconstructing a life that was only partially documented and when she made assumptions she freely admitted it. This guy was really interesting and very human; funny and insecure and weird but very smart.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews