The Richter scale is a way to quantify the magnitude of an earthquake using a ba

Question

The Richter scale is a way to quantify the magnitude of an earthquake using a base-10 logarithmic scale. The magnitude is defined as the logarithm of the ratio of the amplitude of waves measured by a seismograph to an arbitrarily small amplitude. An earthquake that measures 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times larger than one that measures 4.0, and corresponds to a 31.6 times larger release of energy. [Rephrased from Wikipedia] The energy in joules released for a particular Richter scale measurement is given by: Energy = 10^((1.5*richter)+4.8) where Energy is measured in joules and richter is the Richter scale measurement (typically on a scale from 1-10 as a floating point number). One ton of exploded TNT yields 4.184x10^9 joules. Thus, you can relate the energy released in joules to tons of exploded TNT. You can use the website http://www.convertalot.com/earthquake_power__calculator.html to check work. Here are some famous earthquakes: 9.1 (Indonesia earthquake, 2004) 9.2 (Alaska earthquake, 1964) 9.5 (Chile earthquake, 1960; largest ever measured) This program will perform the appropriate calculations and display the equivalent amount of energy in joules and/or in tons of exploded TNT. Please input a number between 1 and 10 for the Richter scale measurements. In JAVA.

Explanation / Answer

The following code in JAVA should get you going,I have added commentsin the code itself and so it will be relatable:

/* Filename: Main.java */

import java.util.Scanner;
public class Main{

   public static void main(String[] args){
       double richter;//input variable for richter magnitude
       System.out.println("Enter the magnitude of earthquake in richter");
       Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
       richter = scan.nextDouble() ;
       double RichterEnergy=java.lang.Math.pow(10,((1.5*richter)+4.8)); //energy due to earthquake
       double TNTEquiv=4.184*1000000000;//equivalent tons of TNT for the eathquake
       System.out.println("Energy released in joules = "+RichterEnergy);
       System.out.println("Equivalent amount in tons of TNT :"+(RichterEnergy/TNTEquiv));

   }
}

Hope this helps :) .

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