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"My amateur interest in astronomy brought out the term 'magnitude,' which is used for the brightness of a star."
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"But when researchers at Bell Labs discovered that static tends to come from particular places in the sky, the whole field of radio astronomy opened up."
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"This sight... is by far the noblest astronomy affords."
"This is very similar to astronomy where different magnitudes are assigned to the brightness of an astronomical object, depending on the range of wavelengths being measured."
"From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour."
Explore more quotes by Charles Francis Richter
"If one introduces the concept of energy of an earthquake then that is a theoretically derived quantity."
"I repeatedly have to correct this belief. In a sense, magnitude involves steps of 10 because every increase of one magnitude represents a tenfold amplification of the ground motion. But there is no 'scale of 10' in the sense of an upper limit."
"For example, some stars put out large amounts of energy in the infrared part of the spectrum, so that this can produce a different relative magnitude rating than using light energy from the middle of the spectrum."
"I usually point out that most loss of life and property has been due to the collapse of antiquated and unsafe structures, mostly of brick and other masonry."
"By moving them vertically, a representative mean curve could be formed, and individual events were then characterized by individual logarithmic differences from the standard curve."
"What emerged, of course, was that the magnitude scale presupposed that all earthquakes were alike except for a constant scaling factor. And this proved to be closer to the truth than we expected."
"There is another common misapprehension that the magnitude scale is itself some kind of instrument or apparatus. Visitors will frequently ask to 'see the scale.'"
"If the assumptions used in calculating energy are changed, then this seriously affects the final result, even though the same body of data might be used."
"In every area of the world where there is earthquake risk, there are still many buildings of this type; it is very frustrating to try to get rid of them."
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