The Trekkie nudist behind the Richter scale

"Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man" by Susan Elizabeth Hough "Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man" by Susan Elizabeth Hough Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close The Trekkie nudist behind the Richter scale 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Richter's Scale

Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man

By Susan Elizabeth Hough

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS; 336 PAGES; $27.95

The shift of science from an individual to a team pursuit has caused some to opine that the days of the great scientific biography are numbered, too. Yet there are still a few luminaries of science who have not yet gotten their due in print. Among them, until now, was

That it took so long for a biography to appear is surprising because Richter's life is about as ripe for the book treatment as it gets. A reluctant seismologist, he made important contributions to the field, including though not limited to the scale that bears his name. But as we learn in Susan Elizabeth Hough's "Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man," noteworthy professional accomplishments tell only a fraction of the story.

Richter, it turns out, was also an avid nudist, a frustrated but prolific poet, a Trekkie, a devoted backpacker profiled in the pages of Field and Stream, and a philandering spouse who was quite possibly in love with his sister and whose globe-trotting wife may have been a lesbian. While that may not sound all that unusual to the modern-day San Franciscan, keep in mind that the guy was born in 1900.

"Richter effectively led a double life, and not simply in the usual tawdry sense of the phrase: his life as a scientist and his other life, as a writer," writes Hough. It's about as strong a premise for a biography as they come. That this line comes near the end of Chapter 12 gives a clue as to why, with such rich material, this biography is ultimately disappointing. More on that momentarily.

Truly, Richter the bohemian writer is hard to reconcile with the rumpled scientist his colleagues knew as Charlie. But even his contributions to the field were not without controversy. Richter was a reputed publicity hound, on one hand, and hopelessly awkward in social situations, on the other. Hough speculates, also late in her book, that he may have suffered from Asperger's syndrome. Indeed, this theory does neatly reconcile some of his more contradictory traits: his inability to make small talk with his adeptness at one-sided conversations with the press, or his lack of focus on long-term research projects with the obsessive logs he kept of "Star Trek" episodes.

And what of that famous scale? It is telling that when we speak of earthquakes, we still refer to the Richter scale, even though seismologists now use its successor, the moment magnitude scale developed in 1979. Richter's scale was a first -- important in that it provided seismologists with a standardized means of measuring earthquakes where there was none -- but hardly the last word. Developed when Richter was in his mid-30s, it established him as a leader in his adopted field (his doctorate was in physics), but Richter's most celebrated accomplishment was plagued by questions of whether he deserved full credit for it. Many believe the scale should also bear the name of his colleague and longtime collaborator Beno Gutenberg, whose guidance, supervision and suggestions enabled Richter to complete it.

Hough, a seismologist herself, has thoroughly researched her subject and done her best to delve into areas where scientists fear to tread: psychology, emotions, speculation. As biographies go, she covers a lot of ground. Alas, she struggles to shape and organize her findings into a compelling story.

Perhaps the analogy is too facile, but "Richter's Scale" reads like a good biography that's been through the Big One. It's scattered all over the place, with parts focused on key events and people isolated in their own little chapters rather than woven into the story. The chronology is disjointed in a way that can hardly be called inventive. For instance, we've spanned nearly the entirety of Richter's career before we learn anything substantive about his wife or his mental problems. Facts and even direct quotes get repeated. Source materials are repeatedly pointed to rather than discreetly tucked into footnotes. Little effort is made to bring together the two lives of Richter into one complete narrative.

The writing, too, is often flat. Of Richter's wife, Lillian, Hough writes apologetically, "The novelist could paint the picture; the biographer can only acknowledge a picture that isn't there -- or at least, is not altogether complete." Yet it's precisely a novelist's touch that I found myself longing for as I read this book. There's no scene setting to speak of, nor a sense of story or arc. With no central narrative or premise to provide focus, Hough often lingers on details that have little or no import -- such as a house Richter owned with his wife that was torn down or the fact that one of the female employees of the Seismo Lab at Caltech had an extreme fear of reptiles -- while breezing over others that practically demand deeper explanation, such as the fact that Richter could read and speak more than half a dozen languages. That's interesting for a man who barely left Los Angeles, but the incongruity is left unexplained.

So perhaps it's too soon to declare the days of the great scientific biography over. As this book shows, greatness is as dependent upon the subject matter as the writer. In the case of Richter, Hough has done a great job of unearthing and compiling the facts of his life. It's up to someone else to turn them into a great read.