Sorry to be slow to reply; I read the daily digest. What you are asking for exists and is called earthquake intensity. It's defined by the Modified Mercalli Scale and is written as Roman numerals from I to XII. Intensity reflects the level of observed damage and is not directly related to the physics of the earthquake source. The best case in point is the Haiti earthquake last year. That earthquake was almost 100 times smaller than the Japan earthquake (magnitude 7 compared to magnitude 8.9) but resulted in over 222,000 deaths. This had more to do with the rampant poverty and corruption in Haiti than it did with the location or size of the earthquake.
Now, how can we make this horn related? Perhaps we could start a thread on a scale for the quality of musical sound emanating from an instrument. Would this be a quantitative measure of the sound production of the instrument, or a qualitative judgment by a listener in the audience? And how does one account for the quality, or lack thereof, of the player and the instrument? Jeff Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:26:34 -0600 > From: "William.S.Gross" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Hornlist] BBC Phil in Japan > To: The Horn List <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > It is probably a good tool for geophysical purposes but problematic in the > disaster response business, case in point Christchurch. > > It would nice to have something that indicates scope of damage. > > On Mar 11, 2011, at 12:59 PM, Jeffrey S Barker <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Earthquake magnitude is determined from the amplitude of ground motion as > > measured on a seismograph. In principle, energy should be proportional > to > > amplitude squared, just as sound intensity is proportional to pressure > > squared. However, Richter noted that the energy released by an > earthquake > > does not simply scale up. A larger earthquake ruptures a larger fault, > over > > a larger range of depths, and over a longer time duration. So, in > defining > > the magnitude scale, Richter empirically related magnitude to energy > > according to: log E = 11.4 + 1.5 M (for energy in ergs). Thus, for every > > increase in magnitude by 1 unit, energy increases by 10^(1.5), or a facor > of > > 31.6. > > > > Jeff Barker > > (seismologist and horn player) > > > (snip) -- Jeffrey S. Barker Assoc. Prof. of Geophysics, Binghamton University Faculty Master, Dickinson Community (607) 777-2522 (Geology) (607) 777-2826 (Dickinson) http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~jbarker/ _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
