Abstract
A measurement is the experimental determination of the magnitude of a physical quantity by comparing it with the corresponding unit of measurement. However, most measurements are made indirectly by exploiting physical effects in suitable measuring devices such as transducers or sensors. Most often the quantity to be measured is converted by a sensor into an output quantity of different nature that then can be amplified and recorded as required. A particularly convenient type of output signal is an electric quantity, and one speaks of an electric measuring method.
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Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.
Galileo Galilei, 1564 – 1642
In physical science the first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it.
I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of science, whatever the matter may be
.William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), 1824 – 1907
Door meten tot weten. (To knowledge by measurement.)
Onnes Kammerlingh, 1853 – 1926 Dutch physicist
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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Gautschi, G. (2002). Introduction. In: Piezoelectric Sensorics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04732-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04732-3_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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