Richter, Charles F.

Richter, Charles F. (Francis)

(1900–85) seismologist; born in Hamilton, Ohio. He was a theoretical physicist until 1927, when he joined the seismological laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. With colleague Beno Gutenberg, he devised the scale of earthquake magnitude that has been the standard for measuring earth tremors since 1935; he never himself referred to it as the "Richter scale."

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.