Measurement – Harmonia Philosophica

Limits of measurements… Limits of out self…

Photo by **Spiros Kakos** from **Pexels**

The limits of classical measurements of mechanical motion have been pushed beyond expectations in recent years. But the sensitivity that we can achieve using purely conventional means is limited. For example, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics implies the presence of “measurement backaction”: the exact knowledge of the location of a particle invariably destroys any knowledge of its momentum, and thus of predicting any of its future locations.

Backaction-evading techniques are designed specifically to ‘sidestep’ Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle by carefully controlling what information is gained and what isn’t in a measurement, e.g. by measuring only the amplitude of an oscillator and ignoring its phase. In principle, such methods have unlimited sensitivity but at the cost of learning half of the available information.

Now, in an effort to improve the sensitivity of such measurements, the lab of Tobias Kippenberg at EPFL, working with scientists at the University of Cambridge and IBM Research — Zurich, have discovered novel dynamics that place unexpected constraints on the achievable sensitivity. Published in Physical Review X, the work shows that tiny deviations in the optical frequency together with deviations in the mechanical frequency, can have grave results — even in the absence of extraneous effects — as the mechanical oscillations begin to amplify out of control, mimicking the physics of what is called a “degenerate parametric oscillator.” (1)

The problem of measurement. An unsolvable problem. And yet, within our mania to understand everything we have missed that every unsolvable problem points only to the obvious: that the problem itself is wrong!

Trying to measure things. In a cosmos which cannot be measured.

Trying to observe things. In a cosmos not meant to be observed.

Trying to understand. In a cosmos which was never meant to be understood.

Destroyers of the world.

Trying to push through a veil we ourselves have set up.

We are the cosmos.

There is no cosmos.

Trying to understand our self. Without accepting our self.

Can’t you see?

There is no need to learn how to swim.

You are already deep in the water…

Measuring laws…

One of the fundamental physical constants, the ‘weak axial vector coupling constant’ (gA), has now been measured with very high precision for the first time. It is needed to explain nuclear fusion in the sun, to understand the formation of elements shortly after the Big Bang, or to understand important experiments in particle physics. With the help of sophisticated neutron experiments, the value of gA has now been determined with an accuracy of 0.04%. (1)

Trying to measure constants.

To formulate models.

Which need more constants.

Which we then have to measure.

Until we measure everything.

Until we have defined all constants.

What a stable world that would be.

Perfectly defined.

Perfectly modeled.

It is raining.

Let’s find shelter.

Come on.

And in that stable world.

A kid.

And in the fierce rain.

Takes a step forward.

Into the rain.

Laughing!

Ruining everything!

How much do you weight?

Photo by **Skitterphoto** from **Pexels**

Scientists measure the weight of our galaxy using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite.

It seems that the Milky Way weighs in at about 1.5 trillion solar masses, according to the latest measurements. Only a few percent of this is contributed by the approximately 200 billion stars in the Milky Way. Most of the rest of the mass is locked up in dark matter.

Although we cannot see it, dark matter is the dominant form of matter in the universe, and it can be weighed through its influence on visible objects like the globular clusters. “We know from cosmological simulations what the distribution of mass in the galaxies should look like, so we can calculate how accurate this extrapolation is for the Milky Way,” said Laura Watkins of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, lead author of the combined Hubble and Gaia study. These calculations based on the precise measurements of globular cluster motion from Gaia and Hubble enabled the researchers to pin down the mass of the entire Milky Way. (1)

Measuring something (mass) which we do not know what it is exactly (energy? creation of our observations? strings in multiple dimensions?) or how it is formed (Higgs?) through the use of observations interpreted via assumptions based on simulations based on other assumptions, only in order to discover that most of our galaxy is made up of something which we do not know anything about (dark matter) but which we use in our models that we then use to predict its mass…

Impressive isn’t it?

Building castles of sand on foundations of sand…

At the end we will end of explaining everything.

And a soft wave will hit the shore and will take everything away…

We will cry when this happens.

But our children will laugh…

And they’ll just start playing again!

Don’t be so serious.

Look closely.

And you will see your own small footprints on the beach too…

Can you start laughing?

Moon bright…

Scientists put the Moon to work daily as a calibration source for space-based cameras that use the brightness and colors of sunlight reflecting off our planet to track weather patterns, trends in crop health, the locations of harmful algal blooms in oceans and much more. The information sent from Earth-facing imagers allows researchers to predict famines and floods and can help communities plan emergency response and disaster relief.

To make sure that one satellite camera’s “green” isn’t another’s “yellow,” each camera is calibrated – in space – against a common source. The Moon makes a convenient target because, unlike Earth, it has no atmosphere and its surface changes very little.

The trouble is that, for all the songs written about the light of the silvery Moon, it’s still not understood exactly how bright the Moon’s reflected light is, at all times and from all angles. Today’s best measurements allow researchers to calculate the Moon’s brightness with uncertainties of a few percent — not quite good enough for the most sensitive measurement needs, says NIST’s Stephen Maxwell. To make up for these shortcomings, scientists have developed complicated workarounds. For example, they must periodically check the accuracy of their satellite images by making the same measurements multiple ways — from space, from the air and from the ground — simultaneously.

Or, if they want to compare images taken at different times by different satellites, they have to ensure that there is some overlap during their time in space so that the imagers have the chance to measure the same part of the planet at roughly the same time. But what happens if a research team can’t get a new camera into space before an old one is retired? “You get what’s called a data gap, and you lose the ability to stitch together measurements from different satellites to determine long-term trends,” Maxwell says.

Really knowing how bright the Moon is – with uncertainties of much less than 1 percent — would reduce the need for these logistically challenging solutions and ultimately save money.

So NIST is setting out to take new measurements of the Moon’s brightness. Researchers hope they will be the best measurements to date. (1)

We want to accurately measure the brightness of the Moon. In order to perform other measurements based on that measurements. And the measurement of the telescope that will be used for the measurements of the brightness of the moon will again need to be calibrated vis-a-vis other measurements.

But what is the initial measure of all measurements? What is the measurement which gave meaning to other measurements in the first place?

Space. Monads. Light. Time. Darkness.

Tiny specks of (a priori) knowledge shaping our minds…

We know we can measure.

Because of something that is immeasurable…

The moon is bright.

Shining tonight.

I stroll on my own.

And still, I feel not alone…

Wise vs. Clever.

She learned to read, then for a challenge she taught herself Spanish – at the tender age of 2. Her parents took her to the doctor, where IQ tests put her in the top 2% of test-takers, with an IQ of 160 – the same as Albert Einstein’s. Her doctors told a reporter that her IQ was “off the scale.” (1)

In the era of measuring, we can find “genius” everywhere.
Soon small children will solve puzzles faster than light.
And measuring their performance will lead to the “discovery” of a whole new generation of “clever” people.

But it is “wise” people we need. Not “clever” people.
Solve any puzzle you want within any time-frame you wish.

Love is what we need. Caring.
Not more Sudoku super solvers.

Are you wise enough to see the difference you stupid modern man?