Quotes About Measurement

Even if the electrons are separated by many light-years, you instantly know the spin of the second electron as soon as you measure the spin of the first electron. In fact, you know this faster than the speed of light! Because these two electrons are "entangled

Before an observation is made, an object exists in all possible states simultaneously. To determine which state the object is in, we have to make an observation, which "collapses" the wave function, and the object goes into a definite state. The act of observation destroys the wave function, and the object now assumes a definite reality.

he was able to estimate the size of the nucleus of the atom. It was one hundred thousand times smaller than the atom itself.

In other words, the process of observation determines the final state of the electron.

If our scientists invent concepts like forces, it is only because they cannot visualize the invisible vibrations that fill the empty space around us. Some scientists sneer at the mention of higher dimensions because they cannot be conveniently measured in the laboratory.

Roughly speaking, the greater the value of the metric tensor, the greater the crumpling of the sheet. No mattet how crumpled the sheet of paper, the metric tensor gives us a simple means of measuring its curvature at any point. If we flattened the crumpled sheet completely, then we would retrieve the formula of Pythagoras.

To resolve the discrepancy between waves of probability and our commonsense notion of existence, Bohr and Heisenberg assumed that after a measurement is made by an outside observer, the wave function magically "collapses," and the electron falls into a definite state—that is, after looking at the tree, we see that it is truly standing. In other words, the process of observation determines the final state of the electron. Observation is vital to existence.

You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can wind up focusing on misleading factors.

The depth of love is immeasurable, when you scale it, you will only see and experience it to the degree of your scales.

We need a means for measuring the sizes of different infinite collections of universes. It is this information that we need in order to work out how likely it is that we reside in one type of universe rather than another. Until we find a fundamental dictum for how we should compare infinite collections of universes, we won't be able to foretell mathematically what typical multiverse dwellers-us-should see in experiments and observations. Solving the measure problem is imperative.

The uncertainty principle establishes that regardless of what equipment you use or what techniques you employ, if you increase the resolution of your measurement of one property, there is an unavoidable cost: you necessarily reduce how accurately you can measure a complementary property. As a prime example, the uncertainty principle shows that the more accurately you measure an object's position, the less accurately you can measure its speed, and vice versa.

Then, just as two trees are the same age if they have the same number of tree rings, and just as two samples of glacial sediment are the same age if they have the same percentage of radioactive carbon, two locations in space are passing through the same moment in time when they have the same value of the inflaton field. That's how we set and synchronize clocks in our bubble universe.

So, whereas Bohr argued away by fiat all but one outcome in a measurement, the Many Worlds approach, combined with decoherence, ensures that within each universe it appears as though the other outcomes have vanished. Within each universe, that is, it's as if the probability wave has collapsed. But, compared with the Copenhagen approach, the as if provides for a very different picture of the expanse of reality. In the Many Worlds view, all outcomes, not just one, are realized.

Somehow, though, the photons always get it right. Whenever the detector is on—again, even if the choice to turn it on is delayed until long after a given photon has passed through the beam splitter—the photon acts fully like a particle.

The principle of relativity rests on a simple fact: Whenever we discuss speed or velocity (an object's speed and its direction of motion), we must specify precisely who or what is doing the measuring.

a) The probability wave for a macroscopic object is generally narrowly peaked. (b) The probability wave for a microscopic object, say, a single particle, is typically widely spread.

the right slit—and since

A serving size on ice cream is like a half a cup. Is that like a joke some guy put on there? Hey, come here: look what I put for the serving size. Did you see? I just did it as a joke but they're going out like that. You ever know anybody to eat a half a cup of ice cream? Hey, you wanna go grab something to eat? Ah, no. I had a half a cup of ice cream. Ya, a whole half a cup. I just kept eating and eating and eating. I must've had two spoonfuls.

So I called back, Ya, I have ten boxes and... no I'm another guy. Ya and they all weigh exactly 22 pounds, and they all have a girth of... three. Three what? Three... girth units.

The second key to goal setting is that goals must be measurable and objective. They must be capable of being analyzed and evaluated by a third party.

Just as we can't tell how much we've eaten simply by relying on internal cues, we can't really tell how much we've gained or lost without some external benchmark.

By the way, did you fellows know that a hummingbird weighs as much as a quarter? Do you think a hummingbird also weighs the same as two dimes and a nickel? But then she asked a question of her own: How do they weigh a hummingbird?

The idea that the stars literally influence men (by a falling fluid, an influenza) is plainly untenable. But that the movements of the constellations are a clock by which earthly changes can be measured is less easy to dismiss.

For ages men had used sticks to club and spear each other—Anaximander of Miletus used the stick to measure time.