Charles Francis Richter 1900-1985 Biographical Information

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Charles Francis Richter 1900-1985 Biographical Information

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Plate Tectonics and People


Charles Francis Richter 1900-1985 Biographical Informatio

Charles Francis Richter

"Nothing is less predictable than the development of an active scientific field." -- Charles F. Richter(BrainyQuote.com, 2009)

Biographical Information

Charles Richter 1920's

Charles F. Richter. 1920's. (California Institute of Technology, 2009)

Charles Francis Richter was born in 1900 in the small farming community of Hamilton, Ohio. His parents were divorced and Richter was sent to live with his grandfather who moved the family to Los Angeles, California when he was only nine (Enotes.com, 2011).

Richter had great schooling growing up. His grandfather sent him to a preparatory high school associated with the University of Southern California. He earned his degree in physics in 1920 from Stanford University before earning his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) in 1928 (Enotes.com, 2011). It was there that he became interested in seismology (the study of earthquakes and the waves they produce).

After graduation from Cal Tech, he was offered a job managing the Seismology Laboratory in Pasadena, California. There he worked closely with Beno Gutenberg. The twosome was studying earthquakes to establish a way to measure and compare them. Their finished product was published in the 1930s, called the Richter scale.

Richter spent most of his life working at Cal Tech. He became a professor of seismology in 1952. He continued researching and teaching simultaneously. He retired in 1970. On September 30, 1985 Charles Richter died of congestive heart failure at the age of 85 (Enotes.com, 2011).



Specific contributions to plate tectonic theory / solid Earth geophysics
Before Richter’s work on earthquake magnitude, the only way to rate an earthquake was to use the Mercalli scale established in 1902. The Mercalli scale classified earthquakes from 1 to 12 depending on the amount of damage that occurred to people and buildings. This scale was subjective to how well constructed buildings had been and how prepared a population was for a natural disaster. Less populated areas had a hard time rating earthquakes (USGS.com, 2009).


Mercalli Scale created in 1902 (Pronk Palisades, 2011).

Richter’s scale was instead an absolute measure of an earthquake’s intensity. It is not a physical scale, but rather a mathematical calculation. During an earthquake, he would use a seismograph to record actual earth movement. In order to calculate this, Richter had to take into account the distance from the epicenter of the earthquake (the point on the surface of the Earth directly above the earthquakes starting focus). He ranked the scale from 1 to 10 and called them magnitudes. An earthquake with a magnitude of 5 would be ten times stronger than a magnitude 4 earthquake. "The magnitude value was proportional to the logarithm of the amplitude of the strongest wave during an earthquake" (Matter Project, 1999). His scale was published in 1935 and was quickly adopted by scientists worldwide.





To take a closer look at the damages that occcur with each increasing magnitude on the Richter scale and the number of earthquakes that happen at each magnitude yearly, visit http://www.matter.org.uk/schools/Conten ... scale.html(link is external) (Matter Project, 1999).

In the late 1930’s Richter and Gutenberg monitored seismic activity across the globe. They paid particular attention to deep earthquakes, ones whose focus was more than 185 miles below the ground. They noticed that these deep earthquakes all ranked high on the Richter scale, an 8 or greater. They worked on locating the epicenters of all major earthquakes and classifying them geographically (Enotes.com, 2011). Using this deep focus earthquake data, other scientists concluded that these earthquakes are localized within slabs of lithosphere that are sinking into Earth’s mantle. Decades later, this may have helped to prove Hess’s idea of seafloor spreading and subduction zones.



Other interesting scientific contributions
Richter became involved in earthquake engineering by promoting good earthquake building codes and proper training for people who live in earthquake zones. He opposed building anything higher than thirty stories and wanted buildings to remove any extraneous enhancements that could be potentially dangerous (Enotes.com, 2011). He was credited with saving many lives.

Richter also helped establish the Southern California Seismic Array, a network of instruments used to not only track the intensity and origin of earthquakes, but also map their frequency.



Other cool stuff you should know
Richter and Gutenberg published a book in 1941 called Seismicity of the Earth. It became the standard reference for the field (USGS.com, 2009).

In the 1960’s, Richter had a seismograph installed in his living room so that he could monitor earthquakes all the time (Enotes.com, 2011).

Richter loved speaking to the press about his work. He would answer questions at all hours of the night and even kept Cal Tech’s lab phone on his lap in case anyone inquiring information would call (Enotes.com, 2011).

Richter was so dedicated to seismology that he learned how to speak Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese in order to study and read scientific papers from other countries (Enotes.com, 2011).

He was a man who enjoyed other hobbies as well: classical music, hiking, and watching Star Trek (Enotes.com, 2011).

Richter chose the word “magnitude” for his scale because he was fascinated with astronomy. In astronomy, a star’s magnitude is how bright it appears to us on Earth (USGS.com, 2009).

Richter enjoyed traveling to nudist colonies with his wife (Enotes.com, 2011).

Bibliography

Brainy Quote. (2009). Charles Francis Richter Quotes. Retrieved June 12, 2011, from, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/ch ... is_richter(link is external).

California Institute of Technology. (2009). Archives: Charles F. Richter. Retrieved June 7, 2011 from, http://archives.caltech.edu/collections ... ibits.html(link is external).

Enotes.com. (2011). Charles F. Richter. Retrieved June 1, 2011, from www.enotes.com/earth-science/richter-charles-f(link is external).

Matter Project. (1999). The Richter Scale. Retrieved June 12, 2011, from, http://www.matter.org.uk/schools/Conten ... scale.html(link is external).

Pronk Palisades. (2011). Shaken and Stirred—Japan Earthquake. Retrieved June 7, 2011, from, http://raymondpronk.wordpress.com/2011/ ... ter-scale-...(link is external).

USGS.com. (2007). Public Lecture Series. Retrieved June 7, 2011, from, http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/sca ... s2007.html(link is external).

USGS.com. (2009). The Richter Magnitude Scale. Retrieved June 4, 2011, from http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/richter.php(link is external).


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Francis_Richter

Charles Francis Richter (April 26, 1900 – September 30, 1985), was an American seismologist, born in Hamilton, Ohio. He is most famous as the creator of the Richter magnitude scale, which quantifies the size of earthquakes. He first used the scale in 1935. He developed the scale in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg; both worked at California Institute of Technology, California, USA. The quote "logarithmic plots are a device of the devil" is attributed to Richter.

He was also a naturist. Richter's wife disapproved of this, so she divorced him and moved to France
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http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Bio ... erC/1.html


American seismologist ,Born in Hamilton, Ohio, Richter was educated at the University of Southern California, Stanford, and the California Institute of Technology, where he obtained his PhD in 1928. He worked for the Carnegie Institute (1927-36) before being appointed to the staff of the California Institute of Technology. He became professor of seismology there in 1952.

Richter developed his scale to measure the strength of earthquakes in 1935. Earlier scales had been developed by de Rossi in the 1880s and by Giuseppe Mercalli in 1902 but both used a descriptive scale defined in terms of damage to buildings and the behavior and response of the population. This restricted their use to the measurement of earthquakes in populated areas and made the scales relative to the type of building techniques and materials used.

Richter's scale is an absolute one, based on the amplitude of the waves produced by the earthquake. He defined the magnitude of an earthquake as the logarithm to the base 10 of the maximum amplitude of the waves, measured in microns. This means that waves whose amplitudes differ by a factor of 100 will differ by 2 points on the Richter scale. With Beno Gutenberg he tried to convert the points on his scale into energy released. In 1956 they showed that magnitude 0 corresponds to about 1011 ergs (104 joules), while magnitude 9 equals 1024 ergs (1017 joules). A one unit increase will mean about 30 times more energy being released. The strongest earthquake so far recorded had a Richter-scale value of 8.6. In 1954 Richter and Gutenberg produced one of the basic textbooks on seismology, Seismicity of the Earth.
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