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Rounding Up the Numbers

Metrology is more than the sum of its elements

Taran March @ Quality Digest
Tue, 05/20/2014 - 10:13
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“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.”
—Galileo Galilei

It’s all well and good to say that metrology “includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement,” but that doesn’t adequately express its gestalt, which I think even metrologists would agree is hard to measure.

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In gestalt psychology, any integrated structure or pattern that has specific properties (and surely that qualifies as a broad-brush definition of metrology) can neither be derived from the elements of the structure nor considered simply as a sum of its elements. (Thanks, Webster’s.)

In other words, metrology has to be more than adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. Trying to describe it reminds me of the time I spent in Alaska. I could see the landscape, observe the way people lived, notice the wide swings in daylight hours, but I didn’t understand how different it was from the “lower 48” until I’d been there for several months. Then, quite suddenly, its immensity hit me. It was so vast and wild that my mind had no point of reference to offer at first.

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Comments

Submitted by umberto mario tunesi on Tue, 05/20/2014 - 20:41

"metro"

Once upon a time there was an italian car named Metro that was so lousy that the original ad was reversed to evidence its unwanted features. Taran, I agree with you: metrology has to be "metrologistics", not just a market place for devices to measure some product dimensions. What is said of Galilei is right but he added "make measurable what is worth measuring, and how". There's a further quotation by C.F. Gauss that may fit the topic: "Lacks of mathematical skill he whoever doesn't quickly recognize what's evident and whoever wastes his time in measures more precise than required." 

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