"There is another common misapprehension that the magnitude scale is itself some kind of instrument or apparatus. Visitors will frequently ask to 'see the scale.'"
About this Quote
Richter is puncturing a very human fantasy: that complicated knowledge comes with a physical lever you can point to, touch, and trust. The deadpan detail - visitors asking to "see the scale" - is funny because it exposes a category error we all make. We treat abstract measures as if they were gadgets, the way people imagine "IQ" as a machine that reads a number off your forehead or think "inflation" is something you can photograph. Richter isn’t just correcting a misunderstanding; he’s diagnosing a cultural craving for concreteness.
The specific intent is educational, but it’s also defensive. Seismology, like much of modern science, lives in translation: ground motion becomes a squiggle on a seismogram, which becomes a calculation, which becomes a single public-facing figure. The public meets only the final numeral and assumes it must be produced by an object called a scale, like a bathroom scale. Richter’s line quietly insists on the difference between an instrument (the seismograph) and a framework for interpretation (the magnitude scale). One records; the other standardizes.
Subtextually, he’s gesturing at the politics of expertise. If you can "see the scale", you can imagine checking it yourself, auditing the number, reclaiming authority. Richter denies that comfort: the scale is not a thing in a museum case but a mathematical agreement, upheld by training, conventions, and inference. In the mid-20th century, when earthquakes were becoming mass-media events and science was becoming public spectacle, that distinction mattered. Numbers travel well; the methods behind them rarely do.
The specific intent is educational, but it’s also defensive. Seismology, like much of modern science, lives in translation: ground motion becomes a squiggle on a seismogram, which becomes a calculation, which becomes a single public-facing figure. The public meets only the final numeral and assumes it must be produced by an object called a scale, like a bathroom scale. Richter’s line quietly insists on the difference between an instrument (the seismograph) and a framework for interpretation (the magnitude scale). One records; the other standardizes.
Subtextually, he’s gesturing at the politics of expertise. If you can "see the scale", you can imagine checking it yourself, auditing the number, reclaiming authority. Richter denies that comfort: the scale is not a thing in a museum case but a mathematical agreement, upheld by training, conventions, and inference. In the mid-20th century, when earthquakes were becoming mass-media events and science was becoming public spectacle, that distinction mattered. Numbers travel well; the methods behind them rarely do.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
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