What is Charles Richter?
[[File:CharlesRichter.jpg|thumb|Charles Richter]] '''Charles Francis Richter''' (April 26, 1900 – September 30, 1985) was an [[Americans|American]] [[seismologist]] (someone who studies [[earthquake]]s) and a [[physicist]]. He is known for creating the [[Richter scale]] of magnitude, which says how big an earthquake is. == Childhood == Richter went to work at the [[Carnegie Institution for Science|Carnegie Institute]] in 1927 after [[Robert Millikan]] offered him a position as a [[research assistant]] there, where he began a collaboration with Beno Gutenberg. The [[Caltech Seismological Laboratory|Seismology Lab]] at the [[California Institute of Technology]] wanted to begin publishing regular reports on earthquakes in southern California and had a pressing need for a system of measuring the strength of earthquakes for these reports. Together, Richter and Gutenberg devised the scale that would become known at the Richter scale to fill this need, based on measuring quantitatively the [[Displacement (vector)|displacement]] of the earth by [[seismic waves]], as [[Kiyoo Wadati]] had suggested. ==Other websites== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20080404073513/http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/topics/people/int_richter_2.php Charles Richter interview], at [[USGS]] *[https://collections.archives.caltech.edu/repositories/2/resources/202 Charles F. Richter Papers], Caltech Archives {{DEFAULTSORT:Richter, Charles}} [[Category:1900 births]] [[Category:1985 deaths]] [[Category:American physicists]] [[Category:Scientists from Ohio]]