Inevitable Quote by 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 the vertical…

— 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

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

— 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 hardly know…

— 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 a tenfold…

— 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 scale, is…

— 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 proposed structure…

— 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 data might…

— 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 'see the…

— 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 worldwide basis.…

— Charles Francis Richter