Quotes About Measurement

With the invention of the clock, Eternity ceased to serve as the measure and focus of human events.

We do not measure a culture based on its output of undisguised trivialities, but what it claims as significant.

These include the beliefs that the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency; that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment; that in fact human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity; that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking; that what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value; and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts.

The idea that intelligence can be quantitatively measured along a single linear scale has caused untold harm to our society in general, and to education in particular.

Indeed, the uncertainty principle ensures that in the nature of things physics is unable to do more than make statistical predictions.

We do not measure a culture by its output of undisguised trivialities but by what it claims as significant.

try to soften the differentiator. You might ask, "How do you measure machine speed? Do you mean speed for continuous run, or speed for a one-off job? Some machines are very fast under continuous run conditions, but they perform much more slowly if you have one-off production needs.

The success of a civilization is measured not just in its aesthetic achievements but also, and surely more importantly, in the duration and quality of life of its citizens.

The HPI measures two things: the well-being of nations and the sustainability of nations.

Happy life years can be seen as happiness-adjusted life expectancy. The measurement has a powerful logic to it. It recognizes that a satisfying life is not ideal if it is short; and that a long life is not ideal if it is miserable.

running his dividers across a map of the Atlantic and calculating how many leagues his ships could cover each day.

The mechanical clock changed the way we saw ourselves. And like the map, it changed the way we thought. Once the clock had redefined time as a series of units of equal duration, our minds began to stress the methodical mental work of division and measurement.

It's dubious and dangerous, Drucker is saying, to mistake what's measurable for what's important.

How do you measure the expense of an erosion of effort and engagement, or a waning of agency and autonomy, or a subtle deterioration of skill?

Although he may not always recognize his bondage, modern man lives under a tyranny of numbers.

Indeed, only what does not have a tangible measure can easily be exaggerated in importance. This is the basic reason why the privileged elite in every society has always consisted—and, I submit, will always consist—of members who perform unproductive services under one form or another. Whatever the title under which this elite may receive its share, this share will never be that of worker's wage—even if, as is possible, it may be called by that name.

It's simultaneously hard and soft. Until you measure it—which he probably does often, hoping against hope to see something different than last time. But then the wave function collapses to something a little flaccid.

Modern man does not live in space and time, but in geometry and chronometry.

Man today does not live in space and time. But in geometry and chronometers.

just because a test or measurement is reliable doesn't mean it's valid.

Francis Galton (1822-1911), Darwin's cousin, was keen on evolution and heredity. He founded "Individual Differences" and discovered the uniqueness of finger-prints (1892). Galton was also an obsessive counter and measurer. He even counted yawns and coughs at lectures and theatres – trying to produce a "boredom measure"!

I'm doing now with cornets exactly what I used to do with trilobites: measuring, analyzing and cataloging the myriad gradations of their forms.

The more we cloak our divinity, the dimmer the spark becomes. If we choose to shape our lives according to the lesser amount of light, rather than the boundless amount of light from the source, this becomes the yardstick by which all our experiences are measured.

Perhaps the Enlightenment itself was a psychotic break. The belief that all things could be measured