The Myanmar-Thailand earthquake yesterday was horrific. But do we know the scale of the horror? We generally gloss over the Richter Scale. We say it was 7.7, on the Richter Scale. But the Richter Scale dumbs down the ferocity of the earthquakes. Why? Because it is on the logarithmic scale. So, if there was an earlier earthquake that was 5.7 on the Richter Scale, the one that happened in Myanmar - Thailand would be 100 times more ferocious. Because 7.7 - 5.7 = 2. And, 10 to the power of 2 is 100.
This is explained in a Khan Academy video here:
Do we have more such scales in everyday life? Yes. Decibels, the scale with which we measure sound's loudness is in logarithmic scale.
1 comment:
As a good non techie of NDA , this is quite Greek to me .. all the same interesting info . Thanks
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