Rating Richter's Scale

My review of Susan Elizabeth Hough's new biography "Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man" appears in the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review today. As I discuss in the piece, "The Trekkie nudist behind the Richter Scale," I was disappointed by this rather dry read because Richter's life itself was so fascinating.

Richter, it turns out, was also an avid nudist, a frustrated but prolific poet, a Trekkie, a devoted backpacker profiled in the pages of Field and Stream, and a philandering spouse who was quite possibly in love with his sister and whose globe-trotting wife may have been a lesbian. While that may not sound all that unusual to the modern-day San Franciscan, keep in mind that the guy was born in 1900. ...

Hough, a seismologist herself, has thoroughly researched her subject and done her best to delve into areas where scientists fear to tread: psychology, emotions, speculation. As biographies go, she covers a lot of ground. Alas, she struggles to shape and organize her findings into a compelling story.

Still I learned quite a bit from Hough's book, including this fun piece of trivia: Although most people still refer to the Richter Scale when there's an earthquake, seismologists actually use the the moment magnitude scale developed in 1979. Talk about dry! It's no surprise that "Richter" stuck.
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