[In plotting earthquake measurements] the range between the largest and smallest magnitudes seemed unmanageably large. Dr. Beno Gutenberg then made the natural suggestion to plot the amplitudes logarithmically.

No joy in nature is so sublimely affecting as the joy of a mother at the good fortune of a child.

If one introduces the concept of energy of an earthquake then that is a theoretically derived quantity.

The rose does not bloom without thorns. True, but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose.

Lately there have been complaints that the use of the magnitude scale is confusing, or at least the reporting of magnitudes in the newspapers 'confuses the public.

Magnitude may be compared to the power output in kilowatts of a [radio] broadcasting station; local intensity, on the Mercalli or similar scale, is then comparable to the signal strength noted on a receiver at a given locality. Intensity, like signal strength, will generally fall off with distance from the source; it will also depend on local conditions at the point of observation, and to some extent on the conditions along the path from source to that point.

Don't wait for extraordinary circumstance to do good; try to use ordinary situations.