In the first half of the twentieth century, when seismology was still in in its infancy, renowned geologist Bailey Willis faced off with fellow high-profile scientist Robert T. Hill in a debate with life-or-death consequences for the millions of people migrating west. Their conflict centered on a consequential question: Is southern California earthquake country? These entwined biographies of Hill and Willis offer a lively, accessible account of the ways that politics and financial interests influenced the development of earthquake science. During this period of debate, severe quakes in Santa Barbara (1925) and Long Beach (1933) caused scores of deaths and a significant amount of damage, offering turning points for scientific knowledge and mainstreaming the idea of earthquake safety. The Great Quake Debate sheds light on enduring questions surrounding the environmental hazards of our dynamic planet. What challenges face scientists bearing bad news in the public arena? How do we balance risk and the need to sustain communities and cities? And how well has California come to grips with its many faults?
An earthquake can strike without warning and wreak horrific destruction and death, whether it's the catastrophic 2010 quake that took a devastating toll on the island nation of Haiti or a future great earthquake on the San Andreas Fault in California, which scientists know is inevitable. Yet despite rapid advances in earthquake science, seismologists still can’t predict when the Big One will hit. Predicting the Unpredictable explains why, exploring the fact and fiction behind the science—and pseudoscience—of earthquake prediction. Susan Hough traces the continuing quest by seismologists to forecast the time, location, and magnitude of future quakes. She brings readers into the laboratory and out into the field—describing attempts that have raised hopes only to collapse under scrutiny, as well as approaches that seem to hold future promise. She also ventures to the fringes of pseudoscience to consider ideas outside the scientific mainstream. An entertaining and accessible foray into the world of earthquake prediction, Predicting the Unpredictable illuminates the unique challenges of predicting earthquakes.
This is the first book to really make sense of the dizzying array of information that has emerged in recent decades about earthquakes. Susan Hough, a research seismologist in one of North America's most active earthquake zones and an expert at communicating this complex science to the public, separates fact from fiction. She fills in many of the blanks that remained after plate tectonics theory, in the 1960s, first gave us a rough idea of just what earthquakes are about. How do earthquakes start? How do they stop? Do earthquakes occur at regular intervals on faults? If not, why not? Are earthquakes predictable? How hard will the ground shake following an earthquake of a given magnitude? How does one quantify future seismic hazard? As Hough recounts in brisk, jargon-free prose, improvements in earthquake recording capability in the 1960s and 1970s set the stage for a period of rapid development in earthquake science. Although some formidable enigmas have remained, much has been learned on critical issues such as earthquake prediction, seismic hazard assessment, and ground motion prediction. This book addresses those issues. Because earthquake science is so new, it has rarely been presented outside of technical journals that are all but opaque to nonspecialists. Earthshaking Science changes all this. It tackles the issues at the forefront of modern seismology in a way most readers can understand. In it, an expert conveys not only the facts, but the passion and excitement associated with research at the frontiers of this fascinating field. Hough proves, beyond a doubt, that this passion and excitement is more accessible than one might think.
By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognize. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have ever understood the man. Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story, setting it in the context of his family and interpersonal attachments, his academic career, and the history of seismology. Among his colleagues Richter was known as intensely private, passionately interested in earthquakes, and iconoclastic. He was an avid nudist, seismologists tell each other with a grin; he dabbled in poetry. He was a publicity hound, some suggest, and more famous than he deserved to be. But even his closest associates were unaware that he struggled to reconcile an intense and abiding need for artistic expression with his scientific interests, or that his apparently strained relationship with his wife was more unconventional but also stronger than they knew. Moreover, they never realized that his well-known foibles might even have been the consequence of a profound neurological disorder. In this biography, Susan Hough artfully interweaves the stories of Richter's life with the history of earthquake exploration and seismology. In doing so, she illuminates the world of earth science for the lay reader, much as Sylvia Nasar brought the world of mathematics alive in A Beautiful Mind.
In the first half of the twentieth century, when seismology was still in in its infancy, renowned geologist Bailey Willis faced off with fellow high-profile scientist Robert T. Hill in a debate with life-or-death consequences for the millions of people migrating west. Their conflict centered on a consequential question: Is southern California earthquake country? These entwined biographies of Hill and Willis offer a lively, accessible account of the ways that politics and financial interests influenced the development of earthquake science. During this period of debate, severe quakes in Santa Barbara (1925) and Long Beach (1933) caused scores of deaths and a significant amount of damage, offering turning points for scientific knowledge and mainstreaming the idea of earthquake safety. The Great Quake Debate sheds light on enduring questions surrounding the environmental hazards of our dynamic planet. What challenges face scientists bearing bad news in the public arena? How do we balance risk and the need to sustain communities and cities? And how well has California come to grips with its many faults?
Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off of their foundations. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can snarl traffic for months. However, when one examines the collective responses of developed societies to major earthquake disasters in recent historic times, a somewhat surprising theme emerges: not only determination, but resilience; not only resilience, but acceptance; not only acceptance, but astonishingly, humor. Elastic rebound is one of the most basic tenets of modern earthquake science, the term that scientists use to describe the build-up and release of energy along faults. It is also the best metaphor for societal responses to major earthquakes in recent historic times. After The Earth Quakes focuses on this theme, using a number of pivotal and intriguing historic earthquakes as illustration. The book concludes with a consideration of projected future losses on an increasingly urbanized planet, including the near-certainty that a future earthquake will someday claim over a million lives. This grim prediction impels us to take steps to mitigate earthquake risk, the innately human capacity for rebound notwithstanding.
Making Sense of Maths is the only series that develops conceptual understanding. This series will motivate, engage and develop the conceptual understanding of students at KS3 and KS4. Students build their own problem solving strategies based on their understanding of the world around them which then support them to tackle functional questions. The Student's Book, used in conjunction with the workbook and teachers' book, provides engaging activities that support students in developing a true understanding of area, Pythagoras and volume. Making Sense of Maths has been based on Realistic Maths Education (RME) and extensively trialled in KS3 and KS4 classrooms in the UK by a team from Manchester Metropolitan University. - Use alongside existing resources or on its own - Ideal for Year 10s heading for the C/D borderline - Ideal for intervention groups - Supports the move from modular to linear specifications by improving knowledge retention - Provides support for good teaching and learning under the current Ofsted criteria
Making Sense of Maths is the only series that develops conceptual understanding. This series will motivate, engage and develop the conceptual understanding of students at KS3 and KS4. Students build their own problem solving strategies based on their understanding of the world around them which then support them to tackle functional questions. The Teacher's Book provides support for the activities in the student book which develop the student's understanding of sequences, formulas, expanding and factorising. It also contains answers for the workbook questions which consolidate learning. Making Sense of Maths has been based on Realistic Maths Education (RME) and extensively trialled in KS3 and KS4 classrooms in the UK by a team from Manchester Metropolitan University. - Use alongside existing resources or on its own - Ideal for Year 10s heading for the C/D borderline - Ideal for intervention groups - Supports the move from modular to linear specifications by improving knowledge retention - Provides support for good teaching and learning under the current Ofsted criteria
This is a fresh approach to teaching and learning maths, and is designed to be used with the workbook and teacher book. It is part of the 'Making Sense of Maths' range.
Making Sense of Maths is the only series that develops conceptual understanding. This series will motivate, engage and develop the conceptual understanding of students at KS3 and KS4. Students build their own problem solving strategies based on their understanding of the world around them which then support them to tackle functional questions. The write-in workbook provides students with an opportunity to consolidate and apply techniques they have learnt from the student book activities that build mathematical understanding from within real world contexts. Answers to the exercises are provided in the teacher book. Making Sense of Maths has been based on Realistic Maths Education (RME) and extensively trialled in KS3 and KS4 classrooms in the UK by a team from Manchester Metropolitan University. - Use alongside existing resources or on its own - Ideal for Year 10s heading for the C/D borderline - Ideal for intervention groups - Supports the move from modular to linear specifications by improving knowledge retention - Provides support for good teaching and learning under the current Ofsted criteria
Making Sense of Maths is the only series that develops conceptual understanding. This series will motivate, engage and develop the conceptual understanding of students at KS3 and KS4. Students build their own problem solving strategies based on their understanding of the world around them which then support them to tackle functional questions. The Teacher's Book provides support for the activities in the student book which develop the student's understanding of fractions, percentages, ratio and proportion. It also contains answers for the workbook questions which consolidate learning. Making Sense of Maths has been based on Realistic Maths Education (RME) and extensively trialled in KS3 and KS4 classrooms in the UK by a team from Manchester Metropolitan University. - Use alongside existing resources or on its own - Ideal for Year 10s heading for the C/D borderline - Ideal for intervention groups - Supports the move from modular to linear specifications by improving knowledge retention - Provides support for good teaching and learning under the current Ofsted criteria
By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognize. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have ever understood the man. Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story, setting it in the context of his family and interpersonal attachments, his academic career, and the history of seismology. Among his colleagues Richter was known as intensely private, passionately interested in earthquakes, and iconoclastic. He was an avid nudist, seismologists tell each other with a grin; he dabbled in poetry. He was a publicity hound, some suggest, and more famous than he deserved to be. But even his closest associates were unaware that he struggled to reconcile an intense and abiding need for artistic expression with his scientific interests, or that his apparently strained relationship with his wife was more unconventional but also stronger than they knew. Moreover, they never realized that his well-known foibles might even have been the consequence of a profound neurological disorder. In this biography, Susan Hough artfully interweaves the stories of Richter's life with the history of earthquake exploration and seismology. In doing so, she illuminates the world of earth science for the lay reader, much as Sylvia Nasar brought the world of mathematics alive in A Beautiful Mind.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.