Richter, Charles Francis
Richter, Charles Francis (1900-1985), a United States scientist. With Beno Gutenberg, he devised a magnitude scale that has been widely used to report the strength of earthquake shocks. They wrote Seismicity of the Earth (1941), the standard reference work on seismology (the study of earthquakes). Richter was born in Hamilton, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology, and taught there from 1927 to 1970.