Dr. Charles Richter: Measuring Earthquakes

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From tiny tremors to catastrophic disasters, earthquakes are a difficult phenomenon to measure. Aarati tells the story of Charles Richter, a man who wanted to study the stars, but ended up studying the literal earth instead.

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Episode Transcript

Arpita (00:10):
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast,
where we talk about the lives ofscientists and innovators who
shaped the world.
How are you, Aarati?

Aarati (00:19):
Um, I'm hanging in there.
How are you?

Arpita (00:23):
I'm also hanging in there.

Aarati (00:26):
I think I'm doing better than you.

Arpita (00:29):
I'm a little sniffly and under the weather.
I am not full sick, but I amjust a little sniffly and brain
foggy, which is such an annoyingin between because I'm trying to
work and all I want to do is laydown, but when I'm laying down,
I'm not so sick that I'm justlike falling asleep.

Aarati (00:51):
Yeah, so you feel like I'm wasting time.

Arpita (00:53):
I feel like I'm wasting my time.

Aarati (00:55):
Yeah.

Arpita (00:56):
Yes.

Aarati (00:56):
You have enough energy to feel like I should be doing
something productive, but thenwhen you try to do something
productive, you're like, Ican't.

Arpita (01:03):
I feel well enough to be fully trapped in the guilt
spiral.
So that's...

Aarati (01:08):
Great.

Arpita (01:08):
That's where I'm at.

Aarati (01:09):
Yeah.
Oh, that's horrible.
Oh my God.
That sucks.
That sucks so bad.
I hope you get over it soon.

Arpita (01:16):
Thank you.
Me too.

Aarati (01:18):
Yeah.

Arpita (01:19):
What's going on with you?

Aarati (01:20):
Well, we are in full on remodel mode again, like

Arpita (01:25):
Again?

Aarati (01:25):
I was, yes, um, it is the kitchen this time.
I think I mentioned last timethat the kitchen was the first
thing that we had kind ofspruced up when we first moved
into this house and then slowlywas like, Okay.
Let's do this bedroom.
Okay, let's do the otherbedroom.
Let's do the living room.
Let's do the bathroom.

(01:46):
Let's do the other bathroom.
And now it's like we've run outof rooms.
And so we've come back fullcircle to the kitchen, which
it's now been like 15 years.
So things were starting to fallapart.
And so we're just like, Let's dothe kitchen again.
So I'm back to just choosingpaint colors, choosing wood

(02:06):
stains, choosing tile.
It's just like, oh my god, it'sa lot.

Arpita (02:11):
This is, yeah, like I do enjoy design, but what you're
talking about sounds like mynightmare.
And honestly, it might bebecause of my current mental
state where adding somethingelse to my to do list right now
makes me feel like I want to gojump off a cliff.

Aarati (02:24):
Yes, I was actually getting quite annoyed.
I was like between like givingKyro a walk and then going to
all of these tile stores andeverything, where's my actual
job going?
Like where did I, where do Ihave time to actually work and
do stuff?

Arpita (02:40):
So relatable.

Aarati (02:42):
It's crazy.
But yeah, it got me thinkinglike some of the stuff in the
kitchen....
is...
It is honestly like we it wasthere when we moved into the
house, and I don't even know howlong the previous owners had it
in so some of it's probably likeoriginal to the house, like from
60 years ago so it was likeparticle board and definitely

(03:03):
falling apart, and you know thekitchen so stuff gets wet and
moldy and so it was.
Um, it, it was, it was needed,you know, but it just got me
thinking about when we firstmoved here to California, my
whole family, we moved here fromPennsylvania.
I don't know if you knew I wasborn in Pennsylvania.

Arpita (03:22):
I don't think I knew that.

Aarati (03:23):
Yeah, I was born in this tiny little town in Pennsylvania
and I was like one of two brownpeople there.
And...

Arpita (03:32):
I hear that.
Yeah.

Aarati (03:33):
Yeah.
It was like the tiniest littletown.
And then my dad got a job inCalifornia.
He's like, we're all moving toCalifornia.
And my mom really didn't want togo because the only thing she
heard about California was thatwe have earthquakes.
And she was like, I'm scared.
I don't want to go.
And now, she refuses to moveanywhere else.
She's like, nope, like the worldcan end.

(03:55):
I'm staying in the Bay Area.
I'm staying in California.
So

Arpita (03:59):
I do firmly believe it is the best state.
I mean, West Coast, best coast.
For sure, for sure.

Aarati (04:04):
Love it here.

Arpita (04:05):
There's so many things to do here and it's all the
different landscapes.
Also, it doesn't snow, which Iwill, sorry, it doesn't snow in
the Bay Area, which I will take.
Any day.

Aarati (04:16):
Yes.

Arpita (04:16):
The fact that I can drive my car without shoveling
anything is, you know, chef'skiss.
I will not take that forgranted.

Aarati (04:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
But that's kind of like whatinspired today's story because I
was thinking about that.
Like we...
everyone knows California hasearthquakes and it's like, do we
really though?
Like, you know, we have one tinylittle tremor every now and
then.
We,

Arpita (04:42):
We did have one a couple weeks ago.
Did you feel that one?

Aarati (04:45):
I didn't! See.
And that's what I'm talkingabout.
People tell me and I'm like, Oh,did we?
I was probably like runningaround like a nut, you know?

Arpita (04:53):
Honestly, Aarati, you were probably sleeping.
It was like around 5:30 or 6.

Aarati (04:58):
Yeah.
I was probably sleeping.

Arpita (04:59):
I was like, you're probably sleeping.

Aarati (05:01):
No, that's like exactly when I'm dead asleep.
Yeah, that's like, I'm deadasleep at 530.
No one had better be waking meup then.
Yeah.

Arpita (05:10):
And then I, I looked at the thing where you like Google
it, like, did anyone else feelan earthquake or was that in my
dream?
And then.
I went on TikTok, this was priorto the TikTok degeneration, um,
and everyone on there was like,so is everyone on the West Coast
just awake right now postearthquake?
I was like, okay, good, it's notjust me.

Aarati (05:29):
It's not just you, but there were some of us who missed
it completely.
And that is usually like,honestly, when earthquakes
happen, as long as I've been inCalifornia, I've always heard
about it later.
Or there was, there was one timewhen I was like a teenager that
I was lying down on the couch.
And I was looking up at thishanging lamp that we have, and I

(05:49):
noticed that the lamp wasswaying.
And I was like, that's odd.
And then I was like, oh my god,is this an earthquake?
Is this, is this an earthquake?
And I got super excited.
Which is probably not theresponse that you want to have.

Arpita (06:02):
When they're that little, I feel like they are
like, kind of fun.
I don't know, like if the groundjust shakes a little bit, it's
like a ride.
But I mean, obviously we don'twant them to get.
Super big, but also like, Idon't know, I can see like the
buildings in California are, Ilive in a really old building
and they're generally just likebuilt to withstand earthquakes

(06:23):
for the most part, unlessthey're, you know, unless
they're crazy, crazy big.
So.

Aarati (06:27):
Yes.
Well, we are going to talk aboutthat today because...

Arpita (06:31):
I worry about this.
So it feels timely.

Aarati (06:34):
Yes, because today we are going to be talking about
Charles Francis Richter, who weall know from the Richter scale.
So yeah, that's what inspiredtoday's story.
So let's jump into it.

Arpita (06:49):
Sounds great.

Aarati (06:50):
Charles was born on April 26th, 1900 in a farm in
Overpeck, Ohio.
And the farm where he was bornbelonged to his mother Lillian's
family.
And so a little bit aboutLillian.
In 1891, Lillian had marriedFrederick Kinsinger, and they
had a daughter together namedMargaret Rose Kinsinger.

(07:13):
But the marriage didn't reallylast, it was pretty rocky, and
shortly after Margaret was born,Lillian and Frederick divorced.
But then, eight years later, Iguess they decided to try again,
and they got remarried, and thistime they had Charles, who was
also given the last name ofKinsinger.

Arpita (07:32):
Okay, weird, but

Aarati (07:33):
Yeah, so he was originally Charles Kinsinger,
but again, the marriage justdidn't last.
They hadn't sorted through theirissues, I guess.
They divorced again for thesecond time.

Arpita (07:43):
Wait, wait, they got divorced, then they got
remarried, and then they gotdivorced again?

Aarati (07:47):
Correct.
Yeah.

Arpita (07:48):
Okay.

Aarati (07:49):
And like all within like...

Arpita (07:50):
it's giving Ross and Rachel.

Aarati (07:52):
Kind of, yeah, but they stayed together long enough to
have two children, and thenthat's it.
Then they called it quits forgood.

Arpita (07:59):
It sounds like almost like the paperwork would have
been hard.

Aarati (08:02):
Oh my god, and I don't know, well 1900, maybe it's just
like sign, sign something andyou're done.

Arpita (08:09):
That's actually true.
I, like, my brain is like, howdid they file taxes?
But I guess maybe it wasn't asbig of a issue.

Aarati (08:15):
Yeah, today it would be just, like, insane.
It'd be like, is it worth doingthis again?
Probably not.
So Charles and his older sisterMargaret both ended up staying
with their mother and herfather.
So they changed their last nameto their mother's maiden name,
which is Richter.
And then Frederick, the fatherin this case, basically left the
picture.
So Charles had very few memoriesof his father, and most of them

(08:37):
were not good ones becausethey're probably fighting all
the time.
So he was raised by his mother,older sister, and grandfather,
and his mother homeschooled himearly on and taught him three
languages, German, French, andEnglish.
I think the family in general,had roots in Germany.
So...

Arpita (08:56):
Okay.

Aarati (08:57):
Yeah.
And then his grandfather had abunch of old science and nature
books that Charles liked to readand he was particularly
fascinated by astronomy and hewould stay up late gazing at the
stars and I was just likeenvisioning in 1900 or like 19
aughts, a little boy, likegazing at the stars in rural

(09:20):
Ohio.
It was probably gorgeous.
There was probably no...

Arpita (09:23):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.

Aarati (09:25):
Light pollution or anything, so I could totally see
this fascination.

Arpita (09:29):
The, the scar, the sty, uh, I can't talk.
The stars in the sky.

Aarati (09:35):
Mm-hmm

Arpita (09:36):
Are.
Very, very cool, I will say,when there's no light pollution,
like when you're camping or whenyou're out in the wilderness,
you just, I think, forget howmany stars are in the sky.

Aarati (09:47):
Yeah.
And you feel so small.
You look at everything andyou're just like, oh my gosh,
the universe is so vast.
That's crazy.
And so early on in his life, hewanted to be an astronomer.
Then when he was nine years old,Charles's grandfather had been
hearing about opportunities outwest in California, so he
decided to pack up the familyand move to Pasadena, which is

(10:09):
just outside of LA.
And here Charles attended schoolfor the first time ever, and it
did not go well.
It was a really big cultureshock for him to move from this
like quiet rural countryside toa bustling city.
And Charles was extremelysocially awkward and had a
really hard time making friendsand was bullied by the other

(10:32):
kids.

Arpita (10:33):
I like that we're reprising Pasadena, california,
two episodes in a row.

Aarati (10:37):
Yes, so I was actually...

Arpita (10:38):
Also, they were contemporaries, like this is the
same time frame.

Aarati (10:43):
I was already researching this story when you
had told your story, and I waslike, oh my gosh, two scientists
in Pasadena in the early 1900s,who were fascinated by the
stars, like, this is,...

Arpita (10:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of overlap.

Aarati (10:58):
It is.
So today people think Charlesactually probably had Asperger's
syndrome, but it was, he wasnever actually diagnosed with it
during his lifetime.
because there was very littlerecognition around Asperger's
and like the autism spectrum.
But that would make sense as towhy it was really hard for him
to interact socially.
And since he was having such ahard time, his mother decided to

(11:21):
try sending him to theUniversity of Southern
California Preparatory Schoolfor high school.
And he actually did really wellthere.
So he kept up with his amateurstargazing.
He developed an interest inchemistry and math.
He joined the natural historyclub and he made friends that he
went hiking and camping with.
And then after high school,Charles entered college at the

(11:43):
university of SouthernCalifornia as a chemistry major.
And I'm not really sure why hechose chemistry.

Arpita (11:48):
Yeah that's interesting.

Aarati (11:49):
Yeah.
He, he was good at chemistry inhigh school.
He found out that he was good atit there, but I'm not sure why
he decided to pursue that.
But then during his first year,At USC his sister Margaret was
studying English at Stanford andshe told him how wonderful it
was there and like how theatmosphere on campus was so

(12:09):
great and so Charles was like,Oh, I should probably go to
Stanford.
That sounds amazing.
So he decided to transfer there.
And he continued to study as achemistry major, but although he
was good at chemistry on paper,he was terrible at it in the
lab.

Arpita (12:27):
Oh, so relatable.
I totally get that.
I think I did not successfullydo any of my, like, Gen Chem lab
was so finicky.
It was just like, I also feltlike it was so rushed for time.
I don't know if you felt likethis in undergrad, but the lab
was like, Not small.
And the TA was like some gradstudent, which now in hindsight,

(12:49):
I'm like, yeah, I understand whythey were disengaged.
Uh,

Aarati (12:52):
yes.
It's like taking care of allthese like kids with chemicals.
Great.
I don't want to.

Arpita (12:57):
Exactly.
No, totally agree.
And in hindsight, I get it.
But in that moment, I was justlike, what are you doing?
Why are you helping us?

Aarati (13:05):
Yes.
I feel like I was the opposite.
I was good at the practical labstuff.
But then when it came to thetheory, I was just like...
you lost me.
I need, I need you to explainthat again.
No, one more time.
No, one more time.
I don't, I'm almost there.

Arpita (13:19):
I also always feel like I ended up with the most
annoying lab partners where Iended up doing all of the work,
which is just so classic.
Yes.
So classic.
I can't say I have fond memoriesfrom Gen Chem Lab, that was a
terrible time for sure.

Aarati (13:34):
Yeah.
No, I was also the same in groupprojects, you're always the one
doing all the work and theneveryone else is just like, oh,
she's smart, she's got this, andI'm like, I mean I do, but like,
I, I hate it.

Arpita (13:46):
I would love to be the person who's like, In the group
being like, Oh, you got it.
I'm going to sit here, right?
That would be a dream come truefor

Aarati (13:53):
me.
That would be amazing.
Yeah.
Okay.
So he's terrible in the labbecause for some reason, he got
really nervous and tended to bevery sloppy when working with
chemicals.
And that's really not a goodformula for success in
chemistry.
And in fact, he ended upbreaking so many beakers that
his professor advised him slashbegged him to try a different

(14:14):
field of study.
So, Oh, It's pretty bad.
Fortunately, Charles also foundhe was pretty good at physics,
so he switched his major and hewas able to graduate from
Stanford at the age of 20, butlife as a student had been
really stressful for him andafter he graduated he ended up
having a serious emotionalbreakdown.

(14:35):
It was so bad that he actuallyhad to be hospitalized for some
time.

Arpita (14:39):
Oh dear.

Aarati (14:40):
Yeah.

Arpita (14:40):
Okay.

Aarati (14:41):
Uh, he got a psychiatrist named Dr.
Ross Moore, and he suggestedthat Charles try writing down
what he was feeling, and thatreally seemed to help him
express himself.
And so he was slowly able tostart piecing his life back
together.
And he started taking some kindof odd, small, menial jobs,
first as a messenger boy at theL.

(15:02):
A.
County Museum, And then he spenta few years working in a
warehouse for the Californiahardware company in LA.
So it was like really random.
Like nothing to do with physicsat all, but he was still
interested in physics.
So he kind of like kept a fingeron the pulse of like what was
going on in physics, especiallyat what was going on in Caltech

(15:24):
because he was like right therein Pasadena.

Arpita (15:27):
Right.
And so he was like, kind ofaware of what was going on.

Aarati (15:31):
Heard all the explosions.
Just kidding, I'm sorry.

Arpita (15:33):
Yeah, probably.
Like, what are they doing atthat JPL?

Aarati (15:40):
Blowing a lot of things up.

Arpita (15:42):
Yeah, people are pissed.
So he probably knew about that.
In 1923, the director of theNorman Bridge Laboratory of
Physics at Caltech, Dr.
Robert Andrew Millikan, won theNobel Prize in physics for
finding the measurement of theelectric charge carried by a
single proton, which was a veryimportant constant in physics

(16:04):
and for his work on thephotoelectric effect.
So Charles heard that Dr.
Millikan was giving lectures,and he's like, I've gotta go
listen to that and hear what hehas to say.
So he went and listened and hejust got sucked right back into
the world of physics.
He just got fascinated by it andhe's like, I need to keep doing
that.

(16:24):
So he gave up his job at thewarehouse and enrolled in
Caltech as a PhD student inphysics.
He seemed like he was reallybrave, like he was, you know,
trying something different.

Aarati (16:34):
Yeah.

Arpita (16:34):
It can't be easy after something like that and being
hospitalized.
And then at least he, like, wentback.

Aarati (16:40):
Probably really smart too.
Yeah.

Arpita (16:41):
Totally.
Totally.

Aarati (16:42):
Yeah.
Good for him.
So he started work as a studentunder Dr.
Paul Epstein, who studied atomicand theoretical physics and
Epstein had been recruited toCaltech by Dr.
Millikan and Dr.
Millikan was actually also theone who provided the inspiration
for Charles's thesis, which wason the hydrogen atom and the

(17:05):
hypothesis that the electron hada spin.
So I think this was kind of anew theory at the time that
electrons could have a spin as aproperty, and Charles was
realizing along with otherphysicists that if electrons had
a spin that would help answersome mathematical anomalies that

(17:25):
they were struggling with at thetime.
So that was kind of what he wasstudying for his PhD, and he was
able to listen to lectures bysome really big names in the
field of atomic theory, like MaxBorn, Werner Heisenberg, and
Erwin Schrodinger, all of whomwent on to win the Nobel Prize,
eventually.

Arpita (17:46):
I feel like I forget time periods that all of these
scientists lived in.
If that makes sense, like whenyou say all these names in my
head they seem so disparate butthey were all contemporaries
which just seems kind of funnyand then the fact that they all
like met each other whichobviously they would you know
like it makes perfect sense likeyou think about all of the you

(18:06):
know high profile scientists nowlike In their field, they
probably all know each other.
Like...

Aarati (18:10):
Yeah, they're all talking and corresponding.

Arpita (18:13):
But in my brain, they each live in separate chapters
in a chemistry textbook.
And I'm like, none of you guysknow each other.

Aarati (18:19):
Yeah, they're all living in their own little bubble.

Arpita (18:21):
Yes, exactly.
It is weird.

Aarati (18:24):
Yeah.
When I was reading this, I waslike, Oh my God, he knew
Schrodinger?
Like.
Wait, what?

Arpita (18:28):
That doesn't feel...
also, wasn't he German?

Aarati (18:31):
Uh, Schrodinger?
Yeah, but I think that's alsopartly why he, like, understood
Schrodinger a lot better than alot of his classmates because he
knew German because his momtaught him German.
And so, like, when Schrodinger'spapers and notes and stuff was
all in German and he was, like,listening to this guy who had an
accent, he was like, Oh, got it,got it, got it.

(18:51):
Like, and he's like, I couldtalk to you in German.

Arpita (18:53):
Got it.

Aarati (18:54):
Okay, so Back to Charles.
While he was a grad student, healso met his future wife,
Lillian Brand.
Charles describes her as, quote,a little wild when they first
met.
So, so background on Lillian.
She spent some time studying atUCLA, but then she transferred
to Berkeley where she got herdegree in English.

(19:17):
And then she had gotten marriedto a man named Reginald Saunders
and had a son, Butch, but thenthey got divorced.
So she's crazy.

Arpita (19:30):
Wait, that was the crazy part?
Is that she got divorced?

Aarati (19:32):
No, no, no.

Arpita (19:33):
And she has a son?

Aarati (19:34):
No, no.

Arpita (19:34):
Oh, oh, oh.

Aarati (19:35):
But I'm just saying, like, that, that probably added
to the crazy, but I think, Ithink Charles was like, Oh,
yeah, she's, she's out there alittle, like, she's not afraid
to live life and make mistakesand get messy and I bet other
people were like, wait a minute,you're, you're into some, like,
divorced...

Arpita (19:52):
I was gonna say, doesn't his parents, like,

Aarati (19:54):
yeah, like, yeah,

Arpita (19:56):
I don't know that he has a lot of room to talk here.

Aarati (19:58):
Yeah, exactly.
No, I don't think he held thatagainst her at all.
But I think he was like, yeah,she's a little, you know, she's
a little wild.
She's not like this, you know,good little girl.

Arpita (20:10):
Yeah, okay.
I don't know if I buy this, butcarry on.

Aarati (20:12):
Yeah, but, I don't know if this makes you feel better or
not.
Um, probably not.
But it sounds like Charlesdidn't really, like, fall in
love with Lillian.
It was much more like, societyexpects a man of a certain age
to get married.
Here's a girl who seems to likeme, so let's get married.

(20:33):
And it wasn't like thiswhirlwind romance, like, I
totally fell for her type ofthing.
He's just like, okay.

Arpita (20:39):
He was just like, was available and conveniently
located.

Aarati (20:42):
Yes, exactly.
And was apparently like, yeah, Ilike you.
And he's like, okay, works forme.
So.
Yeah.

Arpita (20:51):
The bar is low.

Aarati (20:51):
Yeah, exactly.
But I mean, it worked for them,I guess.
So, so a year later, she andCharles got married and they
never had kids of their own, butCharles and Butch, which is now
his stepson, uh, they got prettyclose and they would go on
hiking trips and play chesstogether.
So.
They had a little family unit.

Arpita (21:10):
Also his name is Butch?
Just straight up.
That's his legal given.

Aarati (21:14):
No, so his legal name was also Reginald Saunders, but
since he's a junior, it becameButch for some reason.
I don't know how that works.
Because, yeah, I've only heardof like Butch as in like, in
those like Looney Tunescartoons.
No, I've heard of it as a name,like in those Looney Tunes

(21:35):
cartoons for a dog.
Like that big.
Like Bulldog is named Butch.

Arpita (21:41):
I guess that that's probably, I don't know, not that
much later than what you'retalking about.

Aarati (21:47):
Yeah.
It's, it's a tough name.
It's a really tough name.
I don't think we have manyButches now.

Arpita (21:53):
I don't think so either.

Aarati (21:54):
Yeah.
So, at this point, he's been agrad student for a good four or
five years, and he didn't reallyhave a clear vision for his
future, but he wasn't tooworried about it, because he was
like looking at the studentsaround him and they were all
going out and getting good jobsand he felt like his professors
liked him well enough that ifthey saw an opportunity for him

(22:15):
they would help him get aposition.
But he was very much thinkingthat he would continue in the
field of quantum mechanics andacademia until it just so
happened that a position openedup at the Seismology Department
in Caltech for a data analyst.
So in the 1920s, there were twoscientists, Harry O.
Wood and John A.

(22:36):
Anderson, and they had figuredout how to record the waves that
an earthquake makes on a devicecalled a seismograph.
And so, Harry O.
Wood and another scientist, HugoBenioff, spearheaded an effort
to build a network ofseismographs all across the
southern part of California andthey needed a data analyst to

(22:58):
sift through all of therecordings that they were
getting.
So it wasn't exactly whatCharles had been thinking of but
he really enjoyed being atCaltech and the position was an
opportunity to stay there inPasadena close to his family and
he could easily keep in touchwith his lab and what was going
on in quantum mechanics and sohe was like, yeah, this is going

(23:19):
to be like a temporary kind ofsituation until something more
in like atomic theories andquantum mechanic comes along and
then I can just like go back,but I can do this temporarily
so.
With Dr.
Millikan's recommendation, heended up landing the job as a
data analyst, and then he justended up staying at the Seismo

(23:39):
lab for the next 43 years.
He never left.

Arpita (23:45):
I was not expecting you to say that number of years.
He just never left.

Aarati (23:50):
Yeah, he just never left.
He did, like, go through thestages.
He, like, became an assistantprofessor, eventually, and blah,
blah, blah.
But, like, yeah, he just neverleft the Seismo Lab.

Arpita (23:59):
I believed you before, but I do feel like the ASD is
really showing.

Aarati (24:03):
Yeah.
He really, like, he's like, thisis, this is awesome.
Okay.

Arpita (24:09):
He's like, this is what I'm good at.

Aarati (24:10):
I'm all in.
All in.

Arpita (24:12):
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
That's where he's at.

Aarati (24:14):
Yeah.
Hi, everyone.
Aarati here.
I hope you're enjoying thepodcast.
If so, and you wish someonewould tell your science story, I
founded a science communicationscompany called Sykom, that's S Y
K O M, that can help.
Sykom blends creativity withscientific accuracy to create

(24:35):
all types of sciencecommunications content,
including explainer videos,slide presentations, science
writing, and more.
We work with academicresearchers, tech companies, non
profits, or really any scientistto help simplify your science.
Check us out at sykommer.com.
That's S-Y-K-O-M-M-E R.com.

(24:57):
Okay, back to the story.
So as a data analyst, Charleswas working with a seismologist
called Beno Gutenberg, but theysoon ran into a problem because
it was very difficult toquantify how strong an
earthquake was so that it couldbe compared to other
earthquakes.

Arpita (25:16):
Mm-hmm

Aarati (25:17):
So there were a few scales that had been used at the
time.
One was theMercalli-Cancani-Seiberg scale,
or MCS scale, and that had beendeveloped by an Italian
volcanologist, GiuseppeMercalli, and then it was
tweaked by Adolfo Cancani andAugust Heinrich Seiberg.

(25:37):
And this was a 12 point scalethat went from 1, which meant
the earthquake was barelyperceptible, to 12, which was an
extreme catastrophe.
But the problem with this scalewas that it was super
subjective.
So, for example, a level 6earthquake, which was deemed a
strong earthquake, was, quote,"felt by all and many are

(25:57):
afraid, heavy furniture is movedand plaster falls".
And then a level seven, whichwas considered a very strong
earthquake, was"damage isnegligible in buildings with
good design and considerable inpoorly designed structures".
So like,

Arpita (26:15):
It's like based on someone's assessment of the
damage, basically.

Aarati (26:18):
Exactly.
Like what's negligible damage?
How do you quantify people werefrightened, like, you know?

Arpita (26:24):
Or like a poorly designed building, like what
constitutes that?
Yeah.
Okay.

Aarati (26:29):
Yeah.
And then the answer of thosequestions would vary depending
on how far away you were fromthe epicenter of the earthquake
too.
So that's a problem also.
And also this scale was prettyuseless if you were trying to
quantify an earthquake that wasin an uninhabited area because
all the parameters weredependent on seeing things like
buildings cracking and vehiclesrocking and objects falling.

(26:52):
So.
It was the best they had, andactually, fun fact, people still
do use it today to some extent,um, especially when studying
historical earthquakes, but it'snot, not great.

Arpita (27:05):
So I guess it also, it would require someone to be at a
certain spot in order to assessit.
So like if it happened somewhereremote, to your point, if no one
was there.

Aarati (27:16):
Yeah.

Arpita (27:17):
Then there's no way to record it.

Aarati (27:19):
Yeah.

Arpita (27:19):
Or to go back retroactively and assign a
number.

Aarati (27:23):
Yeah.
Exactly.
Or if like only one person wasthere, it's like, okay, but how
do you know if that was a levelfive or a level six if there was
no buildings around to tell you?
Yeah.

Arpita (27:35):
Definitely a lot left to be desired.

Aarati (27:37):
Yeah.
So, in 1931, this scale wastranslated into English by Harry
O.
Wood and Frank Neumann, and theymade a few tweaks of their own
and renamed it the ModifiedMercalli Scale of 1931, or MM31.
But still, this scale was reallyonly useful if you had effects
that you can observe.
And another shortcoming of thesescales was that they didn't take

(28:00):
into account how earthquakestravel differently based on
location.
So, for example, in 1895, therewas a level 8 earthquake on the
MM31 scale that hit Charleston.
And that earthquake causedproperty damage across several
states, including Missouri,Illinois, Ohio, Alabama, Iowa,

(28:21):
Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee,and was even felt up into
Canada.

Arpita (28:27):
Wow.
Oh my gosh.

Aarati (28:29):
Huge.
And that's because the soil inthe Midwestern U.
S.
is kind of looser and lesscomplex.
So the earthquake waves cantravel for longer distances
through the ground.
But if you have more solid rock,like we have here in most of
California, like we were talkingabout kind of at the beginning
of the episode, the earthquake'seffects don't travel as far.

(28:51):
So there was the infamousearthquake of 1906 in San
Francisco, which was a level 11on the MM31 scale.
And as we know, it likedecimated the city and it caused
damage to surrounding Bay Areacities, but although it was
catastrophic in the Bay Area, itdidn't really go beyond that.

(29:11):
So,

Arpita (29:12):
I see.
That makes sense.

Aarati (29:13):
Yeah, so it was felt as far up north as Eureka and as
far south as Salinas Valley, butthere was no damage in those
areas.

Arpita (29:20):
That's still not that far, yeah.

Aarati (29:21):
Yeah, it's not that far, and there was no damage there,
so they felt it, but, you know.

Arpita (29:27):
Yeah, yeah.

Aarati (29:27):
And it definitely didn't go up into Canada, you know,
across state lines or anything.
So...

Arpita (29:33):
The Midwest earthquake is really interesting too,
because I don't think of that ashaving like a really big fault
line or anything, you know?

Aarati (29:41):
Yeah.
I think that's why, I don'tknow, maybe I think if you're on
a fault line, that's whenearthquakes happen more
frequently, but you're right.
Like Midwest earthquakes aren'treally considered a thing.
So that is surprising.
So Charles was struggling withhow to quantify something like
this, because which is worse, anearthquake that causes moderate

(30:03):
damage across a widespread areaor an earthquake that like
completely decimates just onecity, right?
And the other issue was thatthis scale was linear, which
scientifically andmathematically was not great,
because a level 12 earthquakewas not just 12 times stronger
than a level one earthquake, itwas like hundreds of millions of
times stronger.

(30:24):
But it's not really practical tohave a scale that goes from one
to a billion.
So like, what do you do withthat?

Arpita (30:30):
You need some sort of exponential function in order to
quantify or at least account forthat difference.

Aarati (30:36):
Yeah, exactly.
So Charles talks to BenoGutenberg, who has exactly that
idea.
Beno says, why don't you try alogarithmic scale?
And so that got Charles thinkingabout the stars.
Okay, so little bit of a tangenthere, but you'll see how it
connects.
So Charles obviously hadn'tbecome an astronomer like he

(30:58):
dreamed when he was a kid, buthe never stopped studying the
stars, and he is just obsessedwith it.
So because of this, he knew thatwe actually measure the
brightness of the stars using alogarithmic scale.
And that's important because ifyou imagine you're looking up at
the night sky and you see twostars, one of them is really big

(31:20):
and bright and one of them is abit smaller and dimmer.
How do you know if the brighterstar is actually bigger and
brighter or if it's just muchcloser to the earth than the
smaller star?
So that small star couldactually be like 10 times
bigger, but it's a hundred timesfurther away.
So.
We're only seeing it as a verysmall dim light.

Arpita (31:40):
So your comparison point is potentially different.

Aarati (31:42):
Yeah.
Exactly.
So astronomers realized thatthey couldn't just measure just
how bright the star was based onhow we perceive it from Earth.
We also need to measure howbright a star actually is.
And so they came up with a newmeasurement called luminosity,
which was the magnitude of thelight energy that a star

(32:03):
releases from its surface.

Arpita (32:05):
That makes sense because then you can compare more apples
to apples as opposed to relativeto two stars in the sky or
relative to where you are onearth.

Aarati (32:13):
Exactly.
And so Charles realized thatthat's exactly the problem we
were having with earthquakes upto this date.
We were only measuring theintensity of the earthquake,
which was how much damage itcaused or how strong it felt
based on our perception of it,but we should also be studying
the magnitude of it, which ishow much energy is actually

(32:35):
being released when anearthquake happens.
So based on Beno's advice andmost of the recent papers in
seismology, Charles developed alogarithmic scale based on the
amplitude of the waves recordedby a seismograph.
So, you know, seismographreading kind of has those like,
like jiggly waves whenever anearthquake hits?

Arpita (32:58):
Yeah.

Aarati (32:58):
So, his scale is corresponding to that.
So it starts at 0 to 1, which isa micro earthquake that's
recorded by a seismograph, butis not felt by people.
So you'll see this like littletiny wave on the seismograph.
And then every time theamplitude of that wave increases
tenfold, that corresponds to awhole number increase on the

(33:21):
scale.

Arpita (33:22):
Okay.
That makes sense.
So, as the waves progressivelybigger from the zero point, like
from a flat line, how muchdisplacement there is, as those
get bigger based on tenfold,that's why you have the
logarithmic scale.

Aarati (33:39):
Yes.

Arpita (33:39):
That's why, that's when it goes up one point.
That makes sense.

Aarati (33:43):
Yeah.

Arpita (33:43):
So it's like a log ten function.

Aarati (33:44):
And it's really looking at the amplitude of the wave.
So it's like zero is a straightline and then you get a little
tiny wave that's 10 to the one.
So that's one.
If you get a 10 times biggerwave than that, that's 10 to the
two.
So that's a magnitude twoearthquake.
If you get 100 times bigger thanthat wave, then that's a 10 to

(34:04):
the three or No, 10 to the 2,sorry.
10 to the 1, 10 to the 2.
I'm getting my scale messed up.

Arpita (34:09):
No, you're right.
And then you were 10 to thethree.
You're right.

Aarati (34:12):
Yeah.
A thousand times stronger wouldbe 10 to the 3.
Yeah.

Arpita (34:15):
Yep.
This is why we can't do mathepisodes.

Aarati (34:20):
I know.
Like, we can barely do logs.

Arpita (34:21):
That wasn't even hard.

Aarati (34:22):
I know, that wasn't even hard.

Arpita (34:23):
That wasn't even hard.

Aarati (34:24):
I still messed it up.
Well, I mean, anything harderthan like 13 plus 24 and I'm
like, calculator, please.
What?

Arpita (34:33):
I would have used a calculator for that.

Aarati (34:35):
Also, like, we're just like log base 10, which is the
simplest log.
I know.
It's like 10, 100, 1000.
This is why I have notes.
I should stick to my notes.
I should not try to like ad lib.
Okay.
So that was in terms of like theamplitude wave.
The amplitude wave is like logbase 10.
But in terms of energy, everyincrease of 0.

(34:58):
2 on the scale is a doubling ofthe amount of energy released.
So a 5.
2 magnitude earthquake releasestwice as much energy as a 5.
0 magnitude earthquake.
And so then that means a 6.
0 earthquake will be 32 timesstronger than a 5.
0 and a 7.

(35:19):
0 will be about 1, 000 timesstronger than a magnitude 5.
0.
That's, that's the math.
That's the math.
We're done.

Arpita (35:27):
I will not be, I will not be submitting a proof.
I believe you.

Aarati (35:30):
Yes, I did actually.
I multiplied it.
I was like 32 times 32 is 1,024.
So about, about 1, 000 times.
Yeah.
So there's technically no upperlimit to how strong an
earthquake can get on thisscale, but the strongest one
ever on record is the GreatChilean Earthquake of 1960,

(35:50):
which was a magnitude 9.
5.
And scientists have theorizedthat a magnitude 10 earthquake
is probably the upper limit ofwhat is even possible on Earth.

Arpita (36:02):
That's so interesting.
Even like the ones that happenin the ocean.
Does it include those?

Aarati (36:07):
Yeah.

Arpita (36:07):
Like, even those?

Aarati (36:08):
Yeah.

Arpita (36:08):
The ones that don't end up having a ton of destruction
because they happen in the deepocean, like, you know, faults?

Aarati (36:14):
I think they were saying, like, if, like, I think
there's some scientists in Japanwho figured this out, and they
were like, if the fault linealong the Japanese trench in the
ocean smashed into this otherfault line, and, like, you know,
ground against each other, thatwould probably be like magnitude

(36:35):
10, but it would have to belike, so of a certain area, like
this huge area along the faultline and this huge area along
the other fault line, like formiles and miles would have to
like, literally rupture againsteach other, and then that would
be a magnitude 10.
So hopefully that does nothappen.

Arpita (36:53):
That's so crazy that you could even extrapolate that.

Aarati (36:56):
Yeah, I bet there is all sorts of computer modeling and
stuff, which would be so cool tosee.

Arpita (37:01):
It is so crazy that the really crazy earthquakes are
usually happening in the oceanbecause so much of the surface
area of the earth is oceans.
That the likelihood of a bigearthquake happening on land
where it's populated is juststatistically low.

Aarati (37:18):
Yeah.

Arpita (37:19):
And so when I think of like the really crazy
earthquakes, I usually think oftsunamis.

Aarati (37:22):
Yes.

Arpita (37:23):
Which is because of that.

Aarati (37:24):
Yes.
Okay.
So Charles used his scale tolook at all the seismograph data
he had and everything fitperfectly on this logarithmic
scale.
He said, quote, the scale fellright out of my hands.
It was a much more powerful toolthan we had any right to look
for.
So he published the scale in apaper in 1935 called"An

(37:46):
Instrumental EarthquakeMagnitude Scale".
And importantly if you notice hecalled it the"magnitude scale",
not the Richter scale.
But by this time he had beenstudying earthquakes in Southern
California for several years andso he became a very well known
seismologist.
And a couple of years earlier in1933, the Long Beach earthquake

(38:07):
had rocked LA and Charles spoketo several reporters as an
expert on the subject.
So like people knew about him.
And so when he published thispaper, reporters were like, what
do we call this scale?
And it was actually aseismologist in Berkeley, Perry
Byerly, who told journaliststhat they should call it the

(38:28):
Richter scale.

Arpita (38:29):
Wait, that's actually very sweet that he didn't name
it after himself.

Aarati (38:33):
No.

Arpita (38:33):
He was just like, Oh, this is just an objective scale.

Aarati (38:37):
Yeah.
This is the magnitude scale.
You should call it the magnitudescale.
Cause that's what it is.
And people were like, no, we'recalling it the Richter scale.
That sounds cooler.
So Charles, because of thisbecomes sort of an earthquake
celebrity, but there were somepeople who weren't really happy
about this.
A lot of people, like a lot ofhis colleagues.

(38:58):
who were working in theSeismolab thought that there
were other people who hadcontributed equally or even more
that weren't getting credit bycalling it the Richter scale.
So like Beno Gutenberg, whoseidea it had been to try a
logarithmic scale in the firstplace, wasn't getting any
credit.
Hugo Benioff, who was the onewho created the actual

(39:19):
seismograph that was generatingall this data, wasn't getting
any mention, and then Harry O.
Wood, who had been kind ofleading the charge on this whole
project, and had hired Charlesin the first place, and like,
put all these people together,like, none of them ever reached
the same level of popularity,and like, becoming a household
name as Charles did.
Importantly though, none of themwere listed as an author on

(39:42):
Charles's paper either.
So.

Arpita (39:43):
Oh, I was just going to ask is, I mean.

Aarati (39:46):
Yeah.

Arpita (39:46):
He wasn't advocating for it to be named after him anyway.
Yeah.
So it's possible that from presslike articles that it would be
left off.
That's so weird that they wereleft off the paper then to, you
know, the more episodes we do,though, I feel like authorship
and the culture aroundauthorship is so different now,
like, I feel like.

Aarati (40:05):
Yeah, it didn't sound like it was like he deliberately
left them off the paper oranything.
He was just like.
This is, I've come up with thescale, here it is, and it wasn't
like I should really list allthese people that helped me at
the time.
It wasn't like that.
It kind of sounds like because

Arpita (40:22):
it does seem like that.
I feel like it's very normal tohave 20 authors on a really big
Nature paper like that's supercommon.
Or having, I would say, like,two authors, if it's not a
position paper, is odd.
If I see only two authors andit's not like a narrative review
or something, is weird.
But it does seem like theculture is very different now in

(40:45):
academia than it was, because Ifeel like this authorship thing
has come up in a lot ofdifferent episodes.

Aarati (40:50):
Yeah, it's it is a bit weird.
I did go back and look at thatspecifically.
And it's like, no, it's CharlesRichter.
And he's the sole author on thispaper.

Arpita (40:58):
Yeah, you would never see that.

Aarati (41:00):
Yeah.
But then like, also, he neverdenied like how important his,
his like colleagues were.
And he even thought that he wasinferior as a seismologist
compared to them.
They were, he was like, they'regreat.
Like, I just kind of got luckyor I, I don't know why I became
popular.

(41:20):
I just did.
But like, if you want the realdeal, they're the ones like, and
he was always like that.
He, he never wanted this levelof publicity, I think, or that's
not what he was really after.
And I think because he got a lotof this publicity is actually a
bit hard on him because hispersonality was like really.
Kind of an awkward introvertedtype of person.

(41:42):
He would like ramble on when hetalked, especially if you asked
him an open ended question.
He didn't know when to stoptalking.
And yeah, I think his colleaguesjust kind of thought him a bit
of a weird person.
And to be fair, he kind ofearned that weird label because
During the years that he'sworking on earthquakes and

(42:06):
creating this magnitude scale,Charles wife, Lillian, had
convinced him to join anorganization run by Hobart and
Lura Glassy called theFraternity Elysia, which was a
nudist organization.
And I thought this was a bitrandom, but it sounds like
Charles didn't really havefriends at work, but he was able

(42:27):
to really build a social circlewithin the nudist community.

Arpita (42:32):
Okay.
Wasn't Jack Parsons also in anudist community though?
Like why was this like a thingin Pasadena?

Aarati (42:37):
I don't know.
I was also thinking about that.
Was he, was he a nudist?
Was Jack Parsons a nudist?

Arpita (42:42):
No, but he was like, involved with some of the
nudists.

Aarati (42:46):
He was like into the occult.

Arpita (42:48):
It's the occult, but I think they did a lot of nudist
things.
Although when I think of nudist,I think of it being very
innocuous, like very innocent.
They just love peace and theearth, and they just also love
their bodies, sort of.
And they think clothes are notquite right.
Yeah, I think Jack Parsons wasmuch more sinister.
But yes, it does seem.

(43:09):
Like, there could be a threadthere.
Also, like, who isn't weird inthe lab?
Like, I feel like it is really arequirement in order to be a
scientist.

Aarati (43:19):
Like, everyone's awkward and weird.
Yeah.

Arpita (43:22):
A hundred percent.
What you're saying just tracksfor me.

Aarati (43:26):
Yeah, but I think you're right though.
I think Charles...
like for Charles and Lillian,The nudist community was like a
much more wholesome kind of likefreeing experience and just
like, you know a place wherethey could shed all expectations
which really helped him make alot more intimate friends than
he ever could at work.

(43:47):
That's nice.
Yeah.
However, around 1935, 1936, theGlasseys ran into a bunch of
legal troubles because so manyof them, so many people in
general, especially at the time,viewed nudism as immoral or a
sexual perversion.
And they labeled the members asexhibitionists when, like we

(44:08):
said, really for Charles, itwasn't about that at all.
But due to the stigma andmultiple legal battles, the
community inevitably lost someof the kind of like freedom
vibes that had drawn Charles andLillian to them in the first
place.
And so, yeah, he continued to bea nudist, but like over the
years, he lost that originalsense of community that he was

(44:32):
craving.
So when things like thishappened or times got tough for
Charles, he would turn towriting to express his feelings.
And I think partly becausethat's what had helped him when
he had his first emotionalbreakdown, but also because his
sister Margaret had by this timebecome a brilliant poet.
And so Charles would often usepoetry to express how he was

(44:54):
feeling.
And in 1933, he wrote a poemcalled Earthquake, which I wrote
down.

Arpita (45:00):
Yes, I do.
Let's hear it.

Aarati (45:04):
Okay, so here's his poem Earthquake.
I set my aspiration on thesoundest rock and chose my
building stone with care.
No moral clay, no pious woodenblock, but granite fact and
rigid logic layer on layer.
I built high towers not of ivorybut stone, wide rooms for books
and serious things.
There was a house room for solidwork alone, but on the top rose

(45:28):
my best imaginings.
Finished at last, I felt anarchitectural pride.
No mind had such a house before.
Then just as I was about tomarch inside, there came a
violent shaking and a stunningroar.
In spite of argument, theclashing stones broke free.
In vain, the rock stood firm andsound.
My towers collapsed in streamsof masonry, and all my lofty

(45:51):
dreams fell crashing to theground.
Though not beyond repair, thesplendid house was wrecked.
I cursed and left it unrestored.
Puzzled, not comprehending mydefect, I came with my
perplexities before the Lord.
Whose smiling said, You are nomason, it appears.
Return and make a new assault.
Use better mortar and dismissyour fears.

(46:13):
The rock and stone were good,the builder was at fault.
So, yeah.

Arpita (46:18):
Wait, that's so good.
That was way better than Ithought it was gonna be.
I don't know what I wasexpecting from that little nerdy
boy, but that's such a goodpoem.

Aarati (46:28):
Really good.

Arpita (46:29):
I like the line.
It's really good.
I really like the line aboutthe, the towers were not ivory,
but stone.

Aarati (46:36):
Yeah.

Arpita (46:36):
I really like that.
And then I like that it's justlike, about his, his whole
personal growth journey.
Like the towers fell, but thenhe realized that he could
rebuild and just be stronger.
Like, I love that.
That's so sweet.

Aarati (46:50):
It was very deep.
Yeah.

Arpita (46:52):
Very deep.
Damn, look at him go.

Aarati (46:55):
I know.
I read a bunch of his poems,actually, and I was like, these
are all so good.
Like, and they're all like very,like, you could tell they're
very personal to him.
Like he's talking about whatit's like to be an introvert or
what it's like to like, youknow, deal with like certain
adversities that rose up in hislife.

(47:16):
And he ran the gamut.
He would write like romancepoetry, he would write like
these big, long, sweeping epics.
So,

Arpita (47:24):
That's so impressive.
I love that.

Aarati (47:27):
And he also wrote novels on science fiction and
philosophy.
He was just like constantlywriting papers and letters to
his friends and colleagues.
And people didn't really seem toknow that about him.
Like even his colleagues didn'tknow that.
He wrote so much until after hedied and they started going
through all his things and theyjust found like loads of

(47:50):
journals and letters and novelsand poetry and they're just
like, what is all of this?

Arpita (47:56):
I mean, I feel like novels is on a different level
though.
Like to be able to craft a storyof that length and depth feels
like it's a different, adifferent ask.

Aarati (48:06):
Yes, definitely.
But he is just like a prolific,prolific writer.
But he barely opened up abouthis private life at work, and in
fact, many of his colleagueswere also completely unaware
that Charles had a stepson atall.
They didn't even know aboutButch.

(48:27):
So some of them, they like, onlyfound out in 1957 when Butch
tragically took his own life andit was a huge blow to Charlie,
who had been very close to himand it caused him once again to
spiral into this like deepdepression.
So at this point, I thinkCharles is really battling a lot

(48:48):
of mental health issues.
Butch passed away suddenly andtragically.
And then three years later, BenoGutenberg passed away, who was
his colleague who gave him theidea about using a logarithmic
scale.
And at this point, like not onlydid Charles feel like he had
lost a really good and importantcolleague, but it also renewed

(49:12):
the drama of Beno not havinggotten credit for helping create
the scale and all the numerouscontributions that he had made
to the field of seismology.

Arpita (49:21):
It also feels like he's already kind of sensitive, like
he's already kind of a sweet,soft, sensitive boy.

Aarati (49:27):
He is.

Arpita (49:27):
And I feel like this brings up all these really
complicated feelings of whetheror not he did the right thing or
whether or not, you know, he didright by a colleague who was
really important to him, so thismakes a lot of sense.
It was really sad.

Aarati (49:41):
Yeah.
One thing that I thought wasinteresting, one of my sources
was a book called CharlesRichter, Measure of an
Earthquake, Measure of a Man bySusan Elizabeth Hough.
And she notes that part of thereason Charles became famous was
because he was a good sciencecommunicator and he was able to

(50:01):
talk to the public in a way thatthey could like relate to and
understand and he never likelooked down on journalists.
Or like people who didn't knowabout earthquakes.
He never talked down to them.
He respected them and he did alot of campaigning for
earthquake preparedness andsafety, especially in LA, and he
helped like make buildings saferby updating building codes and

(50:23):
getting involved in developingbetter engineering practices.
And so then every time there wasa major earthquake, he would be
back in the public spotlightbecause everyone wanted to talk
to him, you know?

Arpita (50:33):
Because he was willing to talk to them and exactly meet
them where they were.
Yeah.

Aarati (50:37):
Yeah, exactly.
So I'm like, that is so I thinkthat's part of science
communication.
That's often overlooked is that,yeah, like you said, it needs to
go both ways.
Like we need an audience that'swilling to listen, but we also
need to be willing to talk in away that, you know, everyone can
understand and we need to meeteach other in the middle, kind

(50:58):
of.

Arpita (50:58):
Exactly.

Aarati (51:00):
So unfortunately the popularity he had with the
public, as I said, didn't reallyseem to extend into academia and
it kind of just got worse asyears went on.
So younger students came toCaltech and they were like super
excited to meet THE CharlesRichter who made the Richter
scale and they wanted to talkabout what they thought was the
next great challenge inseismology, which was accurately

(51:22):
predicting when and where anearthquake would hit, but
Charles like just didn't believeit was possible.
And to be fair, we still don'thave a good way today of
predicting earthquakes.
But you can probably imaginelike him just kind of awkwardly
shutting students down who arelike so passionate about like, I
want to talk about this and Ihave all these ideas and he's

(51:44):
just like, no, it's notpossible.
And they were like,"Well, you'rea jerk," you know?
And

Arpita (51:50):
This is like so cringe because I feel like, again, this
like happens all the time, like,especially at, you know, large
universities, there's extremelyfamous professors and everybody
thinks that they have the nextgreatest thing and that's just
not true.

Aarati (52:03):
Yeah, exactly.
But he like just also justdidn't know how to let them down
gently, which, you know.
He didn't really end up makingmany friends that way either.
So because of that, because hewas like, and I think because he
was kind of unwilling to trytheir ideas and stuff like that,
people started to see Charles askind of a has been.

(52:26):
Like, he did his one famousthing and now he's not really
contributing anything useful.
So by the 1960s, the scientistsat Caltech were urging him to
retire and he resisted this formany years.
He really saw the seismolab askind of his home and a place
where he was very comfortable,and he didn't want to let that
go.

(52:47):
But in 1970, he finally cavedand retired.
But he continued to stay activein the seismology field, and was
still regularly interviewedwhenever a major earthquake
happened.
And he still visited theseismolab all the time, just to
say like, hi, what's up, youknow, so.
By the early 1980s, Charles hadbegun to struggle with declining

(53:08):
health, so he started towithdraw from the public.
In 1984, he had a heart seizurethat he never fully recovered
from, and one year later, hedied on September 30th, 1985 of
congestive heart failure.
He was cremated and buried nextto his wife's grave at Mountain
View Cemetery in Altadena.

(53:29):
However, weirdly, no onebothered to update the
gravestone, and so for years hejust kind of laid buried
anonymously next to his wife.
So

Arpita (53:40):
Wait, what?

Aarati (53:40):
Yeah, so his wife had a gravestone.

Arpita (53:43):
Well I guess he didn't have any kids and Butch had
already passed, so I guess, Imean, like, who would have done
it?
But that's super sad.

Aarati (53:49):
It's so, yeah, and also, I mean, he's Charles Richter,
like, you would've thoughtsomeone would've, like, been
like, he needs a proper grave.
Yeah, somebody.
Like, for all the popularity hehad.
But it wasn't until 1996, morethan 10 years later, that a
private donor and some ofCharles's old colleagues raised

(54:10):
the funds to get a newheadstone.

Arpita (54:12):
How expensive is a headstone?

Aarati (54:14):
I know, right?
I was thinking that, too.
I was like, it can't be morethan a few hundred bucks.
I don't know.
Okay, so to wrap up,technically, we don't use the
Richter scale today to measureearthquakes.
So in 1979, two seismologists,Thomas C.
Hanks and Hiroo Kanemoredeveloped a better logarithmic

(54:35):
scale called the momentmagnitude scale that addressed
some of the shortcomings of theRichter scale.
So Richter scale became lessaccurate when scientists tried
to calculate the total energy ofearthquakes.
Earthquakes that were 6.
5 and higher and the scale wasalso dependent on the earthquake
being local and having a readingfrom a seismograph.

Arpita (54:59):
Yeah

Aarati (54:59):
So it has its shortcomings.
And so we have a better scale,but I think because of Charles's
popularity in the public eye,the moment magnitude scale is
often just also referred to asthe Richter scale by journalists
and whatnot.
So we still call it that eventhough it's not that.

Arpita (55:18):
That is really funny, given that there was all these
issues around everyone callingit the Richter scale and now
it's not even the Richter scalebut we're still calling it that.

Aarati (55:26):
We're still calling it the Richter scale.
Yeah.

Arpita (55:29):
That's funny.

Aarati (55:30):
But, like, have you ever heard of the moment magnitude
scale?
It's just not catchy.

Arpita (55:35):
No, no.
I think it's because no one isnaming things well.

Aarati (55:39):
Yeah.

Arpita (55:39):
That's, I think, the problem here.

Aarati (55:40):
Exactly.

Arpita (55:42):
They should have named it something zingier, and then
it will stack.

Aarati (55:45):
Yeah, you need to come up with a better name.
Then you can get thrust intopopularity and have emotional
breakdowns.
No, just kidding.

Arpita (55:51):
That's so dark, Aarati.

Aarati (55:53):
I know.
I'm just imagining what wouldhappen to me one day if I got
famous.

Arpita (56:02):
Definitely an emotional breakdown in my future.

Aarati (56:04):
Yeah.
And April 26th, which is Charlesbirthday, is unofficially
Richter's Scale Day.
And to commemorate this day,some people bake earthquake
cookies.
Which are, like, basicallychocolate crinkle cookies, you
know, with the powdered sugar,but then it has, like, all the
cracks.
Yeah, I didn't know.
I love chocolate crinklecookies.

(56:25):
I didn't know that they werecalled earthquake cookies, so.

Arpita (56:27):
That's actually really cute.

Aarati (56:29):
Yeah, and the other thing that they'll do is they
will wear a shoestring aroundtheir neck in remembrance of a
funny story in which Charlessecretary once had to remind him
that he was supposed to attend ameeting, and he should probably
wear a tie to this meeting.
But he instead undid one of hisshoelaces and tied it around his
neck and was like, good enough.

Arpita (56:51):
I have a very vague memory of doing this in
elementary school.

Aarati (56:55):
Really?

Arpita (56:56):
I think so.
Definitely the crinkle cookies.
And what you said about theshoelace I feel like sparked
something deep in myhippocampus, but I

Aarati (57:05):
Oh my goodness.

Arpita (57:06):
I cannot confirm nor deny, but that sounds so vaguely
familiar and something like, itsounds like something an
elementary school class would dofor sure.

Aarati (57:14):
It absolutely does.
Yeah, it absolutely does.
Oh, that's so cool.
Yeah.
So that's basically his story.
A funny, kind of awkward dude,you know, um, who kind of became
famous by accident.

Arpita (57:29):
Great story.
I loved it.
I also feel like there's just somuch About earthquakes as a
Californian, you talk about'emall the time.
You feel them all the time.
And then also way back toelementary school thing, like we
had a whole unit on faults andearthquakes in fourth or fifth
grade.
I don't know if you had thattoo, but yeah, it just feels
like such a core part ofCalifornian culture.

(57:53):
Like I never knew all that abouthim.

Aarati (57:55):
Like fourth or fifth grade you learn like state
history, right?
And so yeah, earthquakes is likea huge part of that for us.
Yeah.

Arpita (58:03):
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.

Aarati (58:04):
Yeah,

Arpita (58:05):
I love that.
Great story.

Aarati (58:07):
I had to focus a lot on this because I kept on like
veering off into like, ooh, letme learn about fault lines.
And I'm like, no, no, we got toRichter like what he did.
And he's an interesting enoughguy.
So I was like, you need to needto keep this tight and need to
like, not veer off into.
You know, like you said, oceantrenches.

Arpita (58:27):
Okay, but ocean trenches are crazy.

Aarati (58:29):
I know.

Arpita (58:30):
Maybe that's our next scientist is some ocean trend.

Aarati (58:32):
Some ocean guy.
We haven't done an ocean person.

Arpita (58:34):
We haven't done an ocean person.
You're right.
You're right.
We have any like marine.
Okay, but ocean trenches.
That's what I want to know.

Aarati (58:40):
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's coming up in thefuture.

Arpita (58:49):
Thanks for listening.
If you have a suggestion for astory we should cover or
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(59:09):
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