Mercalli intensity scale German geophysicist August Heinrich Sieberg and became known as the Mercalli–Cancani–Sieberg (MCS) scale. The Mercalli–Cancani–Sieberg scale was later modified by Harry O. Wood and Frank Neumann, and published in English in 1931 as the Mercalli–Wood–Neumann (MWN) scale. It was later improved by Charles Richter, the father of the Richter magnitude scale. The scale is known today as the Modified Mercalli scale (MM) or Modified Mercalli Intensity scale (MMI). The lower degrees of the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale generally deal with the manner in which the earthquake is felt by people. The higher numbers of the scale are based on observed
Rating scale at the ordinal level. Numbers indicate the relative position of items, but not the magnitude of difference. Attitude and opinion scales are usually ordinal; one example is a Likert response scale: Some data are measured at the interval level. Numbers indicate the magnitude of difference between items, but there is no absolute zero point. A good example is a Fahrenheit/Celsius temperature scale where the differences between numbers matter, but placement of zero does not. Some data are measured at the ratio level. Numbers indicate magnitude of difference and there is a fixed zero point. Ratios can be calculated. Examples include