On Measurement (1980-1989)

"Science, since people must do it, is a socially embedded activity. It progresses by hunch, vision, and intuition. Much of its change through time does not record a closer approach to absolute truth, but the alteration of cultural contexts that influence it so strongly. Facts are not pure and unsullied bits of information; culture also influences what we see and how we see it. Theories, moreover, are not inexorable inductions from facts. The most creative theories are often imaginative visions imposed upon facts; the source of imagination is also strongly cultural." (Stephen J Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man", 1980)

"The concept of 'measurement' becomes so fuzzy on reflection that it is quite surprising to have it appearing in physical theory at the most fundamental level [...] does not any analysis of measurement require concepts more fundamental than measurement? And should not the fundamental theory be about these more fundamental concepts?" (John S Bell, "Quantum Mechanics for Cosmologists" [in "Quantum Gravity"], 1981)

"[…] nature at the quantum level is not a machine that goes its inexorable way. Instead what answer we get depends on the question we put, the experiment we arrange, the registering device we choose. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening." (John A Wheeler & Wojciech H Zurek, "Quantum Theory and Measurement", 1983)

"The vision of the Universe that is so vivid in our minds is framed by a few iron posts of true observation - themselves resting on theory for their meaning - but most of all the walls and towers in the vision are of papier-mâché, plastered in between those posts by an immense labor of imagination and theory." (John A Wheeler & Wojciech H Zurek, "Quantum Theory and Measurement", 1983)

"The term closed loop-learning process refers to the idea that one learns by determining what s desired and comparing what is actually taking place as measured at the process and feedback for comparison. The difference between what is desired and what is taking place provides an error indication which is used to develop a signal to the process being controlled." (Harold Chestnut, 1984)

"Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases." (Stephen W Hawking, "The Direction of Time", New Scientist 115 (1568), 1987)

"Subatomic reality is a lot like that of a rainbow, whose position is defined only relative to an observer. This is not an objective property of the rainbow-in-itself but involves such subjective elements as the observer’s own position. Like the rainbow, a subatomic particle becomes fully 'real' only through the process of measurement." (Michael Riordan, "The Hunting of the Quark", 1987)

"Just like a computer, we must remember things in the order in which entropy increases. This makes the second law of thermodynamics almost trivial. Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases."  (Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time", 1988)