Charles Francis Richter

Emphasis was usually put on the horizontal acceleration factor, for the simple reason that ordinary structures have a built-in safety factor for…

— Charles Francis Richter

Nothing is less predictable than the development of an active scientific field.

— Charles Francis Richter

The rose does not bloom without thorns. True, but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose.

— Charles Francis Richter

Refining is inevitable in science when you have made measurements of a phenomenon for a long period of time.

— Charles Francis Richter

As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak…

— Charles Francis Richter

No joy in nature is so sublimely affecting as the joy of a mother at the good fortune of a child.

— Charles Francis Richter

The laboratory routine, which involves a great deal of measurement, filing, and tabulation, is either my lifeline or my chief handicap, I…

— Charles Francis Richter

I repeatedly have to correct this belief. In a sense, magnitude involves steps of 10 because every increase of one magnitude represents…

— Charles Francis Richter

Magnitude may be compared to the power output in kilowatts of a [radio] broadcasting station; local intensity, on the Mercalli or similar…

— Charles Francis Richter

From here, it becomes an engineering problem; the engineer considers the ground motion that will occur and evaluates the requirements of the…

— Charles Francis Richter

If the assumptions used in calculating energy are changed, then this seriously affects the final result, even though the same body of…

— Charles Francis Richter

There is another common misapprehension that the magnitude scale is itself some kind of instrument or apparatus. Visitors will frequently ask to…

— Charles Francis Richter

The most remarkable feature about the magnitude scale was that it worked at all and that it could be extended on a…

— Charles Francis Richter

I suggested that we might compare earthquakes in terms of the measured amplitudes recorded at these stations, with an appropriate correction for…

— Charles Francis Richter

I was lucky because logarithmic plots are a device of the devil.

— Charles Francis Richter

Lately there have been complaints that the use of the magnitude scale is confusing, or at least the reporting of magnitudes in…

— Charles Francis Richter

Remembrance is the only paradise out of which we cannot be driven away.

— Charles Francis Richter

Only fools, liars, and charlatans predict earthquakes

— Charles Francis Richter

For example, some stars put out large amounts of energy in the infrared part of the spectrum, so that this can produce…

— Charles Francis Richter

What emerged, of course, was that the magnitude scale presupposed that all earthquakes were alike except for a constant scaling factor. And…

— Charles Francis Richter

I would walk - not run - to the nearest seismograph.

— Charles Francis Richter

If one introduces the concept of energy of an earthquake then that is a theoretically derived quantity.

— Charles Francis Richter

There is nothing more beautiful than cheerfulness in an old face, and among country people it is always a sign of a…

— Charles Francis Richter

This is very similar to astronomy where different magnitudes are assigned to the brightness of an astronomical object, depending on the range…

— Charles Francis Richter

Incidentally, the usual designation of the magnitude scale to my name does less than justice to the great part that Dr. Gutenberg…

— Charles Francis Richter