The USGS posted a link to a calculator to help people understand the difference between two earthquakes of different magnitudes.
Case in point? Let’s compare the 9.0 March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake (My one month later post with video) with the m5.1 March 24, 2014 La Habra Quake
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake is 7943.282 times bigger than a magnitude 5.1 earthquake on a seismogram, but is 707,945.784 times stronger (energy release). Makes the mind boggle!!