Intensity, not force

Charles Richter, born in 1900, was, in the words of his biographer, ‘a nerd among nerds: regarded as peculiar and intensely private even by scientists’ standards. And we’re talking about people who put red-and-white bumper stickers on their cars that read, “If this sticker is blue, you’re driving too fast”.’ The only seismologist most of us will ever have heard of was a crumpled, driven, disorganised figure, sometimes kindly and sometimes cantankerous — just as one wants one’s batty scientists to be.

He conducted long, cheerful conversations with himself. He was prone to turn up to work wearing two ties at once. During the lunch-break at a meeting of the geology faculty at Caltech, he pulled out an egg, gave it a sharp tap on the counter, and watched with dismay as a mess of raw egg slid down the table. ‘I thought it was hard-boiled when I got it out of the refrigerator,’ he muttered.