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Measurement Quotes

Browse 366 quotes about Measurement.

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Measurement Quotes

“It can happen to but few philosophers, and but at distant intervals, to snatch a science, like Dalton, from the chaos of indefinite combination, and binding it in the chains of number, to exalt it to rank amongst the exact. Triumphs like these are necessarily 'few and far between.'”

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Book:Reflections on the Decline of Science in England: And on Some of Its Causes
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“Let us keep the discoveries and indisputable measurements of physics. But ... A more complete study of the movements of the world will oblige us, little by little, to turn it upside down; in other words, to discover that if things hold and hold together, it is only by reason of complexity, from above.”

IfsWorldLittlesReasonTogetherScienceTurnsStudyMovementDiscoveryPhysicsComplexityMeasurementUpside Down
Book:The Phenomenon of Man
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“Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, and falling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven and earth with a reed, but not with a growing reed.”

MenWholeMightEarthTogetherFallHeavenGrowingMathematicsInstrumentsWork OutCombinationConstructsFalling ApartClayFragmentsHandfulMeasurementHeaven And EarthPebblesReedsUnreliable
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“You can't measure success if you have never failed. My father has taught me that if you really do want to reach your goals, you can't spend any time worrying about whether you're going to win or lose. Focus only on getting better.”

IfsWantInspirationalSuccessFatherWinningGoalLosesWorryFocusTaughtFailureBasketballLosingSelf ImprovementImprovementGet BetterReachingMeasurementWin Or LoseMeasure Of SuccessDon't Waste Your TimeReaching Your GoalsSuccess Is Not Measured
Author:Steffi Graf
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“Astronomy may be revolutionized more than any other field of science by observations from above the atmosphere. Study of the planets, the Sun, the stars, and the rarified matter in space should all be profoundly influenced by measurements from balloons, rockets, probes and satellites. ... In a new adventure of discovery no one can foretell what will be found, and it is probably safe to predict that the most important new discovery that will be made with flying telescopes will be quite unexpected and unforeseen.”

ShouldMayMadeImportantMatterScienceFoundStarsSpaceSunStudyFieldsPlanetsAdventureSafeDiscoveryAstronomyFlyingObservationAtmosphereUnexpectedRocketsMeasurementBalloonsTelescopesSatellitesUnforeseenNew DiscoveriesNew Adventure
Author:Lyman Spitzer
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“Measurement has too often been the leitmotif of many investigations rather than the experimental examination of hypotheses. Mounds of data are collected, which are statistically decorous and methodologically unimpeachable, but conclusions are often trivial and rarely useful in decision making. This results from an overly rigorous control of an insignificant variable and a widespread deficiency in the framing of pertinent questions. Investigators seem to have settled for what is measurable instead of measuring what they would really like to know.”

KnowsSeemsScienceDecisionResultsKnowledgeConclusionDataDecision MakingInvestigationHypothesisInsignificantExaminationMeasurementDeficiencyVariablesMeasuringInvestigatorsFramingPertinentPertinent Questions
Author:Edmund Pellegrino
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“The determination of the relationship and mutual dependence of the facts in particular cases must be the first goal of the Physicist; and for this purpose he requires that an exact measurement may be taken in an equally invariable manner anywhere in the world... Also, the history of electricity yields a well-known truth-that the physicist shirking measurement only plays, different from children only in the nature of his game and the construction of his toys.”

WorldFirstsWellsMayChildrenDifferentPlayFactsTruthSciencePurposeGamesGoalNatureDifferencesKnownCasesTakenParticularDeterminationMutualYieldConstructionToysElectricityDependenceWell KnownPhysicistMeasurement
Author:Franz Karl Achard
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“When young Galileo, then a student at Pisa, noticed one day during divine service a chandelier swinging backwards and forwards, and convinced himself, by counting his pulse, that the duration of the oscillations was independent of the arc through which it moved, who could know that this discovery would eventually put it in our power, by means of the pendulum, to attain an accuracy in the measurement of time till then deemed impossible, and would enable the storm-tossed seaman in the most distant oceans to determine in what degree of longitude he was sailing?”

KnowsMeanYoungScienceTimeChurchImpossibleStudentsDivineOne DayDegreesOceanDiscoveryIndependentMovedDetermineStormConvincedSailingBackwardsCountingPulseMeasurementAccuracyArcsDurationPendulumsSeamenChandeliersOscillationPisa
Book:Science and Culture: Popular and Philosophical Essays
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“There have been many authorities who have asserted that the basis of science lies in counting or measuring, i.e. in the use of mathematics. Neither counting nor measuring can however be the most fundamental processes in our study of the material universe-before you can do either to any purpose you must first select what you propose to count or measure, which presupposes a classification.”

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Book:Classification and Biology
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“Such pretensions to nicety in experiments of this nature, are truly laughable! They will be telling us some day of the WEIGHT of the MOON, even to drams, scruples and grains-nay, to the very fraction of a grain!-I wish there were infallible experiments to ascertain the quantum of brains each man possesses, and every man's integrity and candour:-This is a desideratum in science which is most of all wanted.”

MenWantedScienceWishBrainIntegrityMoonWeightEvery ManExperimentsGrainQuantumMeasurementFractionsPretensionInfallibleScruplesLaughableNicetiesCandour
Author:Robert Sutton Harrington
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“...the geometrician teaches me how to work out the size of my estates rather than how to work out how much a man needs in order to have enough....You geometers can calculate the area of circles, can reduce any given shape to a square, can state the distances separating starts. Nothing's outside your scope when it comes to measurement. Well, if you're such an expert, measure a man's soul; tell me how large or how small that is. You can define a straight line; what use is that to you if you've no idea what straightness means in life?”

IfsMenNeedsWellsMeanIdeasSoulStatesEnoughUseOrderGivenLinesTeachTeachingShapesAreasDistanceSizeWork OutCirclesNo IdeaExpertsSquaresEstatesScopeMeasurementStraight LinesSeparating
Author:Seneca the Younger
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“For complex reasons, our culture allows "economy" to mean only "money economy." It equates success and even goodness with monetary profit because it lacks any other standard of measurement. I am no economist, but I venture to suggest that one of the laws of such an economy is that a farmer is worth more dead than alive. A second law is that anything diseased is more profitable than anything that is healthy. What is wrong with us contributes more to the "gross national product" than what is right with us.”

MeanReasonSuccessLawCultureEconomyAliveProductsHealthyGoodnessStandardsComplexesProfitFarmersVentureEconomistGrossProfitableMeasurementMonetaryDiseasedEconomic Globalization
Author:Wendell Berry
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“In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”

KnowsFirstsKindMayMatterNumbersQualityStepsPrinciplesSubjectsStageEssentialsMethodConnectedMeasurementMeasuringReckoningPhysical ScienceMeasure For MeasureFlying Machines
Author:Lord Kelvin
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“No person will deny that the highest degree of attainable accuracy is an object to be desired, and it is generally found that the last advances towards precision require a greater devotion of time, labour, and expense, than those which precede them.”

PersonsLastsFoundGreaterObjectsDegreesHighestDenyDevotionLabourExpensesMeasurementAccuracyPrecision
Book:Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage
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“The strength and weakness of physicists is that we believe in what we can measure. And if we can't measure it, then we say it probably doesn't exist. And that closes us off to an enormous amount of phenomena that we may not be able to measure because they only happened once. For example, the Big Bang. ... That's one reason why they scoffed at higher dimensions for so many years. Now we realize that there's no alternative.”

IfsYearsBelieveMayReasonBigsAbleScienceRealizingHappenedExampleAmountHigherWeaknessEnormousAlternativesReason WhyDimensionsPhysicistBangsMeasurementStrength And Weakness
Author:Michio Kaku
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“There is no instrument for measuring the pressure of the Ether, which is probably millions of times greater: it is altogether too uniform for direct apprehension. A deep-sea fish has probably no means of apprehending the existence of water, it is too uniformly immersed in it: and that is our condition in regard to the Ether.”

MeanScienceWaterExistenceMillionsGreaterSeaConditionsDirectPressureRegardInstrumentsFishesUniformsMeasurementApprehensionMeasuringDeep Sea
Book:Ether and Reality: A Series of Discourses on the Many Functions of the Ether of Space
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“This king [Sesostris] divided the land among all Egyptians so as to give each one a quadrangle of equal size and to draw from each his revenues, by imposing a tax to be levied yearly. But everyone from whose part the river tore anything away, had to go to him to notify what had happened; he then sent overseers who had to measure out how much the land had become smaller, in order that the owner might pay on what was left, in proportion to the entire tax imposed. In this way, it appears to me, geometry originated, which passed thence to Hellas.”

WayGivingMightScienceOrderLeftPayHappenedLandKingsTaxesEqualDrawsRiversSizeProportionOwnersDividedEgyptRevenueMeasurementGeometryImposingNomenclatureNotify
Author:Herodotus
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“Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to.”

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Book:The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private
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“We never really see time. We see only clocks. If you say this object moves, what you really mean is that this object is here when the hand of your clock is here, and so on. We say we measure time with clocks, but we see only the hands of the clocks, not time itself. And the hands of a clock are a physical variable like any other. So in a sense we cheat because what we really observe are physical variables as a function of other physical variables, but we represent that as if everything is evolving in time.”

IfsMeanHandsMovingScienceTimeObjectsFunctionEvolveClockCheatReally MeanMeasurementVariables
Author:Carlo Rovelli
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“I used to think truth was eternal, that once I knew, once I saw, it would be with me forever, a constant by which everything else could be measured. I know now that this isn’t so, that most truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most basic things.”

ThinkingKnowsHardWisdomWould BeTruthRememberUsedForeverKnowingSawsOur LivesSeeingHard WorkEternalConstantInherentMeasurementBasicsLife LearningBasic Things
Book:Autobiography of a Face
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“It is not a dirty word, "feminism." I just think that women belong in the human population with the same rights as everybody else... The problem is, "A feminist looks like this, or is like that." We are taught not to like ourselves as women, we are taught what we're supposed to look like, what our measurements are supposed to be. I never hear what measurements men are supposed to be. Just women.”

ThinkingMenHumansLooksProblemRightsFeminismTaughtPopulationFeministSupposed To BeDirtyMeasurementDirty WordsHuman Population
Author:Cyndi Lauper
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“Your body is not who you are. I don't think women should label themselves based on the way they look. What about defining yourself by a different kind of measurement? What about your heart, your soul, your compassion, your generosity, your strength and your power? There are so many other things to focus on besides your waistline.”

ThinkingWayShouldLooksHeartKindDifferentSoulBodyCompassionFocusWho You AreYour BodyLabelsGenerosityYour SoulDifferent KindsDefiningMeasurementDefine YourselfYour Generosity
Author:Mariska Hargitay
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