By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognize. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have ever understood the man. Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story, setting it in the context of his family and interpersonal attachments, his academic career, and the history of seismology. Among his colleagues Richter was known as intensely private, passionately interested in earthquakes, and iconoclastic. He was an avid nudist, seismologists tell each other with a grin; he dabbled in poetry. He was a publicity hound, some suggest, and more famous than he deserved to be. But even his closest associates were unaware that he struggled to reconcile an intense and abiding need for artistic expression with his scientific interests, or that his apparently strained relationship with his wife was more unconventional but also stronger than they knew. Moreover, they never realized that his well-known foibles might even have been the consequence of a profound neurological disorder. In this biography, Susan Hough artfully interweaves the stories of Richter's life with the history of earthquake exploration and seismology. In doing so, she illuminates the world of earth science for the lay reader, much as Sylvia Nasar brought the world of mathematics alive in A Beautiful Mind.

An earthquake can strike without warning and wreak horrific destruction and death, whether it's the catastrophic 2010 quake that took a devastating toll on the island nation of Haiti or a future great earthquake on the San Andreas Fault in California, which scientists know is inevitable. Yet despite rapid advances in earthquake science, seismologists still can't predict when the Big One will hit. Predicting the Unpredictable explains why, exploring the fact and fiction behind the science--and pseudoscience--of earthquake prediction. Susan Hough traces the continuing quest by seismologists to forecast the time, location, and magnitude of future quakes. She brings readers into the laboratory and out into the field--describing attempts that have raised hopes only to collapse under scrutiny, as well as approaches that seem to hold future promise. She also ventures to the fringes of pseudoscience to consider ideas outside the scientific mainstream. An entertaining and accessible foray into the world of earthquake prediction, Predicting the Unpredictable illuminates the unique challenges of predicting earthquakes.

"If ever there was a subject crying out for a good biography it is Charles Richter, whose name we hear all too often on the news, a tocsin of catastrophe. If ever there was the ideal person to write his story it is Susan Hough, the seismologist who has so successfully made her mission the intelligent popularization of her calling. The combination of subject and writer is peerless-this is a quite wonderful story, impeccably told. If ever there was to be a Richter scale for biography, this surely merits a 9.5, at the very least."--Simon Winchester, author of "A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906"

"Sue Hough brings Charlie Richter to life and, with him, the founders of seismology in southern California. More than simply the inventor of the magnitude scale, Richter was a brilliant, if troubled, scientist and a poet who might have suffered from Asperger's syndrome. Hough shows how this 'accidental seismologist' (his Ph.D. was in theoretical physics) influenced the evolving field of earthquake science and the public perception of earthquake hazard and risk in California and the world."--Robert S. Yeats, author of "Living with Earthquakes in California"

"The story of Charles Richter is a fascinating, albeit somewhat disquieting, one. Susan Hough has done a remarkable job of research, and her writing style makes this a very appealing read."--Clarence Allen, Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Emeritus, California Institute of Technology

""Richter's Scale" is the first biography of the world's most famous seismologist. It tells a story well worth reading and full of surprises. The book provides a remarkable perspective on how the careerof an important scientist can develop in a way that is quite far from a straight-line process. At the same time, it presents a compelling and rather sad story of the personal struggles of the man behind the Richter scale."--Clifford H. Thurber, University of Wisconsin, Madison

"This is an extraordinary piece of scientific biography. Although Charles Richter's name is a household word, even earth scientists know little about the man. This first biography of Richter gives a thoughtful and insightful view of the man, his science, and his crucial role in developing seismology, public awareness of earthquakes in southern California, and policies to reduce earthquake hazards through safer construction. It will be of great interest at a time when natural disaster mitigation is very much in public consciousness."--Seth Stein, Northwestern University

Nonostante i rapidi progressi della scienza che studia I terremoti, per i sismologi non e ancora possibile prevederli. "Prevedere l'imprevedibile" e il primo libro che cerca di spiegarne il motivo, esplorando avvenimenti e aneddoti. Susan Hough ripercorre i tentativi dei sismologi di prevedere ora, posizione e grandezza di terremoti futuri - un percorso pieno di controversie, errori spettacolari e occasionali successi apparenti. Descrive speranze che si sono poi infrante a fronte di rigorosi controlli, cosi come approcci che sembrano oggi promettenti per il futuro. Racconta strani avvenimenti che hanno preceduto terremoti imponenti. Prende in considerazione idee al di fuori del pensiero scientifico condiviso: gli animali possono percepire terremoti imminenti; si generano luci sismiche prima di grandi terremoti. Questo libro e un'interessante e accessibile incursione nel mondo della previsione dei terremoti, che ci mostra le sfide uniche che si affrontano nel prevedere l'imprevedibile."

This is the first book to really make sense of the dizzying array of information that has emerged in recent decades about earthquakes. Susan Hough, a research seismologist in one of North America's most active earthquake zones and an expert at communicating this complex science to the public, separates fact from fiction. She fills in many of the blanks that remained after plate tectonics theory, in the 1960s, first gave us a rough idea of just what earthquakes are about. How do earthquakes start? How do they stop? Do earthquakes occur at regular intervals on faults? If not, why not? Are earthquakes predictable? How hard will the ground shake following an earthquake of a given magnitude? How does one quantify future seismic hazard?

As Hough recounts in brisk, jargon-free prose, improvements in earthquake recording capability in the 1960s and 1970s set the stage for a period of rapid development in earthquake science. Although some formidable enigmas have remained, much has been learned on critical issues such as earthquake prediction, seismic hazard assessment, and ground motion prediction. This book addresses those issues.

Because earthquake science is so new, it has rarely been presented outside of technical journals that are all but opaque to nonspecialists. "Earthshaking Science" changes all this. It tackles the issues at the forefront of modern seismology in a way most readers can understand. In it, an expert conveys not only the facts, but the passion and excitement associated with research at the frontiers of this fascinating field. Hough proves, beyond a doubt, that this passion and excitement is more accessible than one might think.

Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off of their foundations. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can snarl traffic for months. However, when one examines the collective responses of developed societies to major earthquake disasters in recent historic times, a somewhat surprising theme emerges: not only determination, but resilience; not only resilience, but acceptance; not only acceptance, but astonishingly, humor. Elastic rebound is one of the most basic tenets of modern earthquake science, the term that scientists use to describe the build-up and release of energy along faults. It is also the best metaphor for societal responses to major earthquakes in recent historic times. After The Earth Quakes focuses on this theme, using a number of pivotal and intriguing historic earthquakes as illustration. The book concludes with a consideration of projected future losses on an increasingly urbanized planet, including the near-certainty that a future earthquake will someday claim over a million lives. This grim prediction impels us to take steps to mitigate earthquake risk, the innately human capacity for rebound notwithstanding.