Question 21: A good measurement is always carried out very carefully, almost ceremoniously. Is this ceremony comparable with a sacred rite?

Gesine Grosche, PTBWorking Group "Unit of Length": A good measurement is sometimes carried out after 537 poor measurements, at 2.30 h in the morning. Before this rite, there is in most cases hardly any time for ablutions.

Reinhard Scherm, former PTB Department "Fundamentals of Physics and Metrology": No, please. The less mysticism is involved, the more critical the measurement is looked at and the more objective the measurement will be.

Annette Paul, PTB Working Group "Environmental radioactivity": No. Only understanding of the effect measured and gaining of new knowledge may be like a revelation

Uwe Keyser, former PTB Department "Focal Points of Experimental Research": I agree to the first part of the sentence; the rest, in my opinion, is rubbish.

Albert Einstein (1897 - 1955): “You will hardly find a more or less profound scientific mind without a typical religiousness.... His religiousness can be found in ecstatic amazement at the harmony of the laws of nature, which reveal such superior reason against which all rationality of human thinking and ordering is only a pale reflection”.

Ernst O. Göbel, President of the PTB: No, nonsense

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821 - 1894): One day on Helgoland was like an enlightenment when I saw that energy was constant in time. It was rather late in the night. I calculated it with difficulty – and it was correct. I climbed up a rock, saw the sunrise and felt lucky.