A scale devised by the eminent statistician Lewis Fry Richardson to assign a magnitude to events such as wars. A magnitude on this scale is the base-10 logarithm of the number of deaths. World Wars I and II were magnitude 7 events.
Not incidentally, Richardson was a member of the Society of Friends, and served as an ambulance driver in France during World War I.
Lewis Fry Richardson.
Statistics of Deadly Quarrels.
Edited by Quincy Wright and Carl C. Lienau.
Pittsburgh: Boxwood Press, 1960.
| home | | | units index | | | your comments  | | | about | | | help | | |
Copyright © 2002 Sizes, Inc. All rights reserved.
Last revised: 7 October 2002.