Measuring the Mona Lisa

I’ve been writing lately about measurement, and that we should think of measurement as the reduction of uncertainty, not as the application of precision.

One of the main pushbacks that I get on measurement of either type is that measurement somehow steals the magic from something.

For example, I could measure the Mona Lisa’s face, and say that her face is 20 centimeters wide, and the pushback would be that somehow this makes me appreciate the painting less.

I would be impressed if measurement was so powerful that by simply using it, we could hijack magic.

However, I have never met a human who, after learning the size of the Mona Lisa’s face, stopped appreciating the painting.

I have also never met a human who said, “The Mona Lisa is nice, but I prefer portraits where the face is between 21 and 40 centimeters in width.”

I highly suspect that if we start using measurement more, the world will not be stripped of magic.

Related Posts

Measurement v2

The other day, I gave toilet bolts as an example of how measurement is not the application of precision, it is the reduction of uncertainty. Today I give an example from the world of language skills listed on job descriptions… Keep in mind that the general trend is,...

Better than what we had before

There's a book I love, "How To Measure Anything" (I've mentioned it here in the newsletter before, come to think of it). It's about how we think of measurement as the application of precision, rather than the reduction of uncertainty, and thus push many things out of...

Your biggest competitor

According to an article in Harvard Business Review, approximately half of all B2B deals result in the buyer doing nothing. What does that mean? When you are at a party, and someone asks who your biggest competitor is, it is not a company. Your biggest competitor, by...