Only fools, liars, and charlatans predict earthquakes
We are the fault line; if you don't deal with this fault line, you're going to have an earthquake, that's what we always said.
As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs.
It's very personal in California to live within hours, and sometimes just a few miles, of earthquake faults when nuclear plants were being built.
Measuring nuclear yield depends on multiple parameters - the location and number of instruments, the geology of the area, the location of the seismic station in relation to the test site.
I suggested that we might compare earthquakes in terms of the measured amplitudes recorded at these stations, with an appropriate correction for distance.
Incidentally, the usual designation of the magnitude scale to my name does less than justice to the great part that Dr. Gutenberg played in extending the scale to apply to earthquakes in all parts of the world.
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.'
