On Thursday, April 24 at 7:00 p.m. the South Pasadena Public Library and the Friends of the South Pasadena will proudly present a free Author Night program with Susan Elizabeth Hough, a South Pasadena resident and nationally-known author. Her most recent book is Richter’s Scale, the fascinating first biography of Charles Richter, the renowned seismologist. Refreshments will be provided by the Rotary Club of South Pasadena who will be assisted by the South Pasadena Public Safety Commission with the distribution of locally-prepared disaster preparedness materials to all those in attendance

Anyone who has lived in Southern California for very long has experienced an earthquake, to a greater or lesser extent. Those who haven’t can only imagine the feeling of mass instability, when the very ground we live upon shakes uncontrollably while seconds seem like minutes.

Not surprisingly, it was a longtime Southern California resident who gave us the means for measuring earthquakes. But Charles Richter, the scientist for whom the Richter Scale is named, was born in Hamilton, Ohio in 1900 as Charles Francis Kinsinger. He was raised by his grandfather with whom he moved to California after his parents divorced.

Growing up, Charles was considered a “walking encyclopedia” and turned his attention and growing intellect to astronomy, mathematics, and other sciences. Those who knew him thought he was more than a little eccentric, perhaps as a result of a neurological disorder such as Asperger’s Syndrome. 

After attending prep school, he briefly attended USC, and then left for Stanford. Afterwards he worked for the L.A County Museum and a hardware store until he entered the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He had difficulty with social relationships and liked to spend weeks at a time in the San Gabriel Mountains or the Sierra Nevada. His boundless energy was not only used for scientific endeavors but also artistic expression such as poetry. Besides developing the Richter Scale in one of his papers in the early Thirties --around the same time as the Long Beach Earthquake—Richter was intensely private but, ironically, craved public attention.

The free Author Night program will be presented in the South Pasadena Library Community Room at 1115 El Centro Street. No tickets or reservations are necessary.