In every area of the world where there is earthquake risk, there are still many buildings of this type; it is very frustrating to try to get rid of them.

Incidentally, the usual designation of the magnitude scale to my name does less than justice to the great part that Dr. Gutenberg played in extending the scale to apply to earthquakes in all parts of the world.

Intensity like signal strength will generally fall off with distance from the source, although it also depends on the local conditions and the pathway from the source to the point.

My amateur interest in astronomy brought out the term 'magnitude', which is used for the brightness of a star.

The evolution of sex is the hardest problem in evolutionary biology.

I just had a crazy, wild imagination all my life, and science fiction is the greatest outlet for me.

The caricature of science is that we hold tight to the theories we have, and shun challenges to them. That's just not true. In fact, we hold our highest rewards for those scientists who can prove others wrong. And by the way, they are famous in their own lifetimes. We don't wait until they're dead.

There are so few movies that still cast on chemistry. Now it's often, like, this person's movies make this amount of money, and this person's movie makes that amount of money, so let's put them together.