Richter Scale

[Matheous-2]

My apologies if the spelling is incorrect....
Can anyone tell me when the scale was first used to measure the violence of earthquakes please?

[Matheous-2]

Thank you Scrivens!

[New Judge]

What intrigues me a bit, Matheous, is would it not have been easier to have Googled this topic yourself? After all, that's all that Scrivens has kindly done for you. It must surely have been easier to do this yourself. I just find it a bit strange to pose a question on AB when the answer is so readily available elsewhere.

[jno]

I don't see why getting an answer from one site is somehow better than getting it from another.

Note that the Richter scale isn't used much these days. Reports usually just say "an earthquake of magnitude 6.3" but sometimes they slip in "on the Richter scale" when they shouldn't because it isn't.

[bednobs]

have to agree with JNO - theanswerbank is like a search engine that's full of very knowledgeable people. not much difference between here and google, except sometimes you get little personal gems along the way
eg
"What's the star rating of the metrpole hotel in liverpool"
(google) "four stars"
(answerbank) "it's got four stars, but when i went there last week, they were doing some repair work and it was very noisy. Ive also been to the adelphi hotel, which has the same star rating, but was much nicer"

[New Judge]

Quite so, bednobs.

But the question asked here is not subjective, does not involve opinion, was not open to interpretation, nor is it something where personal experience may have been useful. It is a plain matter of fact. Further, whilst Scrivens was very prompt and helpful, all he did was to provide a link to a site which actually did contain the answer - a site which Matheous could easily and more quickly have found himself. So it is not a matter of getting an answer from AB rather than elsewhere. AB did not provide the answer and Matheous has still had to go "elsewhere".

I'm just intrigued at the thinking.

[Matheous-2]

New Judge, Would you rather I had Googled than use AB?

[boxtops]

I often don't understand that either, NJ. If I want to find out something obvious (rather than ask people's advice or opinions) I always Google first. It's rare not to find the answer - and you are right, we on AB often end up Googling to answer other people's questions.

[jim360]

Questions such as this are simple enough that ideally someone could research the answer themselves, rather than ask others to do that research for them. It could be argued to be a bit lazy, since I found the answer myself in about five seconds by the simple medium of typing "Richter Scale first used" into google.

One of the most important skills in the world is to be able to do your own research if possible. May as well start learning that on the fairly trivial.

[Matheous-2]

My very sincere apologies to all I have offended by my laziness!
In future I WILL Google first!

[Tilly2]

Aw! Don't get upset.

[bednobs]

NJ, on the face of it "how many stars does the hotel have" is also a factual, not open to interpretation question , but the opinions are helpful. I would never have known they don't use that scale anymore unless JNO had added it!

[Eve]

Aww, I agree with bednobs and think it's sometimes nice to come on and ask other people and contribute to the site rather than just stick it in a search engine.

[Matheous-2]

Thanks Tilly, - I have fallen foul in this section before. I am often thoughtless when asking questions. All are quite correct- I should consult Google with such trivia first. I am not in the least offended.

[New Judge]

Please don’t take on so, Matheous (or Scrivens) !! :-)

I’m not having a go. I’m just interested to understand how people tick. If I wanted the answer to your question I would be unlikely to ask others. Few people would have the answer to hand and would have to look it up themselves. But each to their own.

However, you’ve shown one thing to be true. You asked a simple question and a typical AB debate has begun to rage !!

[boxtops]

I'm not offended either, I've just googled for some answers to questions on another thread, but sometimes the answers are really easy to find!

[Matheous-2]

Apologies due to Scrivens...Sorry!

[Matheous-2]

Enough of this trivia - I am engrossed in the l o n g thread on poetry & metaphysics! Fascinating stuff!!

[jim360]

I'm probably being too harsh myself. On the other hand I've been dabbling in teaching undergraduate students as part of my PhD (good money and good fun!) and one of the things you can quickly learn is that several times the students asking the questions already know the answers -- they just never thought to ask themselves, or perhaps needed a small prompt to think about it afresh. Sometimes I do actually have to help, of course. But sometimes I never get further than restating the question before the student provides the answer!

Anyway, it never hurts to ask "Can I answer this myself?" before asking someone else.