Precision Measurement Quotes & Sayings

The claim of fine tuning is subjective. As I stated before, no measurement in physics is perfect. The amount of precision we demand can be increased or decreased at our whim. We could have an approximate measurement that has a huge margin of error and call it finely-tuned if we so desire. Theists, in particular, have a lot of such desire. They so badly want God to be an indispensable part of our universe's creation, so they see finely-tuned constants.
They also tend to sweep under the rug the following fact: the vast majority of our universe is hostile to life, and they fail to consider that another hand in the proverbial deck might yield a better universe than ours, one teaming with life on every planet throughout the cosmos. — G.M. Jackson

Clearly, many branches of science need an exquisite precision of timekeeping and the infinitesimal decimals of calibration, so space launches, for example, are not scheduled for leap-second dates. But society as a whole neither needs that obsessive time measurement nor is well served by it. — Jay Griffiths

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. — Charles Babbage

For the better part of my last semester at Garden City High, I constructed a physical pendulum and used it to make a "precision" measurement of gravity. The years of experience building things taught me skills that were directly applicable to the construction of the pendulum. Twenty-five years later, I was to develop a refined version of this measurement using laser-cooled atoms in an atomic fountain interferometer. — Steven Chu

Like most modern words, "Heresy" is used both vaguely and diversely. It is used vaguely because the modern mind is as averse to precision in ideas as it is enamored of precision in measurement. It is used diversely because, according to the man who uses it, it may represent any one of fifty things. — Hilaire Belloc

The uncertainty principle tells us that it would take infinitely long to measure energy (or mass) with infinite precision, and that the longer a particle lasts, the more accurate our measurement of its energy can be. But if the particle is short-lived and its energy cannot possibly be determined with infinite precision, the energy can temporarily deviate from that of a true long-lived particle. In fact, because of the uncertainty principle, particles will do whatever they can get away with for as long as they can. — Lisa Randall

The clock, for all its precision in measurement, is a blunt instrument for the psyche and for society. Schedules can replace sensitivity to the mood of a moment, clock time can ride roughshod over the emotions of individuals. — Jay Griffiths