An American seismologist and physicist of German origin, born in 1900 in Ohio, and devoted his life to studying and measuring earthquakes and the phenomena associated with them. He died in 1985 of heart disease.
Richter and his colleague Benno Gutenberg invented the "Richter device" to measure earthquake intensity and strength. He also held several academic positions, and assumed responsibilities in professional and scientific societies.
Birth and upbringing
Charles Francis Richter was born on April 26, 1900, on a farm near Hamilton, north of Cincinnati, the largest city in Ohio, in the Midwest and Great Lakes region of the United States of America.
His grandparents came from Germany, and his parents separated at a young age, and he grew up in his maternal grandfather’s house, and was attributed to her family (Richter), then he moved with them in 1909 to Los Angeles, southwest California, and in his grandfather’s house he received all support, education and support until he became Scientist.
In 1928 Richter married Lillian Brand in Los Angeles, a creative writing teacher, and died in November 1972.
Study and scientific training
He began his studies in public schools in Los Angeles, and at the age of 12 transferred to the preparatory school of the University of California, and completed his secondary education at college high school.
He attended the University of Southern California, then completed his education at Stanford University, where he received a BA in physics in 1920.
After 3 years, he joined the California Institute of Technology as a graduate student, influenced by Robert A.
Millikan, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, who was the director of the Institute at the time, where in 1928 he obtained a doctorate in theoretical physics under the supervision of his professor Paul Abstin.
Richter seismometer (Getty Images)
working life
Richter began working as a research assistant in the Seismological Laboratory, which was established in Pasadena, California in 1927, and there he began to be interested in seismology in particular, and he and the director of the laboratory, Benno Gutenberg, formed a harmonious duo that worked for many years trying to discover a way to measure and compare earthquakes.
In 1935 Richter and Gutenberg developed a seismometer, an instrument that records the movement of the Earth caused by an earthquake.
This machine consists of a fixed weight suspended in the form of a pendulum, and at its tip a pen touches a cylinder of paper fixed in turn on a flat surface. When the earthquake occurs, the surface moves and the roll of paper moves with it, so the pen draws on it lines that reflect the directions of the surface movement.
Richter used a seismograph to record actual ground motion during an earthquake.
The scale takes into account the device's distance from the epicenter, which is the point on the Earth's surface that is directly above the place of the earthquake.
The Richter and Gutenberg duo continued to work together to monitor seismic activity around the world, until in the late 1930s they applied their scale to deep earthquakes, which originate more than 185 miles underground and have a Richter scale of 8 or more.
Richter took it upon himself to educate the population about earthquakes, giving lectures on how to largely avoid loss of life and property damage during an earthquake, with proper training and awareness of building rules.
In the early 1960s, his advice was taken in Los Angeles, and people began removing decorations and decorations from potentially dangerous buildings during earthquakes, so when the city was hit by a major earthquake in February 1971, he was credited with saving a number of lives. As a result of following his instructions.
Richter has also been active in creating the Southern California Earthquake Array, a network of tools that helps scientists trace the origin and intensity of earthquakes, as well as determine their frequency with great accuracy.
His diligent study resulted in the release of a catalog of seismic activity, called Caltech's "catalog" of California earthquakes.
Charles Richter accompanied by an upgraded version of his device that he invented to measure earthquake intensity (American press)
Functions and Responsibilities
Richter spent his entire career at Caltech with the exception of 1959-1960, when he worked as a Fulbright scholar in Japan, and retired from Caltech in 1970.
He also held other positions and responsibilities, most notably:
President of the Seismological Society of America.
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Member of the International Society for Science and Engineering known as "Sigma Xi".
Assistant Professor at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1937.
Associate Professor 1947.
Professor 1952.
In 1971 he helped found the Lindvall Corporation and Richter and Associates, a consulting firm that provides seismic assessment services for structures, and served as a consultant to the firm after retiring from Caltech.
Charles Richter has written several books on seismology and has participated in hundreds of scientific papers (Getty Images)
Books and Achievements
Richter co-authored with his colleague Gutenberg the book Seismicity of the Earth and Associated Phenomena in 1941, the revised version of which is considered an essential reference in seismology.
However, Richter's most important book is his book "Elementary Seismology", in which he collected the contents of the lectures he gave to students at the California Institute of Technology, in addition to a summary of his experience in studying earthquakes.
The book contains descriptions of major historical earthquakes, tables and graphs, and various topics on the nature of earthquake movement, insurance against it, and construction of buildings.
Richter is also the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific papers on various topics on earthquakes.
Richter has received a number of awards, including:
Medal of the American Seismological Society.
He was a guest of honor at the dedication ceremony of the Charles F. Richter Laboratory of Seismology at the University of California.
Death
Richter died in 1985 of heart disease, at the age of 85, in Pasadena, California.