The accord, which must be approved by the House and the Senate, would avert a potentially cataclysmic default on the governmentâs debt and dispenses with perhaps the most divisive issue in the capital just before Speaker John A. Boehner is expected to turn over his gavel to Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.
The Richter Scale. The Richter magnitude scale was developed in 1935 by Charles F. Richter of the California Institute of Technology as a mathematical device to compare the size of earthquakes. The magnitude of an earthquake is determined from the logarithm of the amplitude of waves recorded by seismographs.n the Richter Scale, magnitude is expressed in whole numbers and decimal fractions. For example, a magnitude 5.3 might be computed for a moderate earthquake, and a strong earthquake might be rated as magnitude 6.3.
The power of an earthquake is measured using a seismometer. A seismometer detects the vibrations caused by an earthquake. It plots these vibrations on a seismograph. The strength, or magnitude, of an earthquake is measured using the Richter scale. The Richter scale is numbered 0-10. Earthquakes measuring just one or two on the scale are very common and can happen everyday in places like San Francisco.