Temp Absence

[Markus Hanke]

Hi all, just wanted to let you all know that I’m temporarily away from the forum, since I’m currently staying at a place without any Internet access. Will return once circumstances permit 👍

[geordief]

I was about  to ask @Markus Hanke to explain the meaning of a made-up German word "ur-observer" in this text(addressed to me) in another forum

 

"The key distinction is between uncertainty (the image is blurred but I think there is an animal out there) and indeterminacy (it really is a woolly sheep and not just an unfocused goat).  Sicherheit is all to do with confidence, hence certainty, whilst Genauigkeit  concerns exactitude, an inherent property of the entity under discussion.

I still think you need to distinguish carefully between an "active observer", i.e. one who necessarily disturbs the system by making a measurement, and the textbook "ur-observer" (a made-up word, but you'll appreciate its very handy Germanic root), i.e  a surface in spacetime, outside of the system being observed. For instance it is quite obvious that nothing we do can affect the fusion processes that make Betelguese shine since what we observe actually happened about 700 years ago, nor for that matter can we influence the decay of a uranium nucleus a few picoseconds away from the gamma ray detector, so we are generally "ur-observers" of nuclear phenomena but "active observers" of fetal ultrasound imaging."

 

https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=86353.0

 

Not so much its meaning in the context , but what does that prefix"ur" mean  "normally"?

 

 

 

Anyone else  can answer if they have good German....

[iNow]

May your time away increase the peace and enlightenment of you and all those around you. May the net suffering in the cosmos decrease as a direct result of your experience. 🕊️☮️

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, geordief said:

Not so much its meaning in the context , but what does that prefix"ur" mean  "normally"?

Anyone else  can answer if they have good German....

In German it usually means original or proto-.  Like the earliest or most primitive form of something.  E.g. schrei means scream, so urschrei means primal scream.  Ich hoffe das hilft.

 

[geordief]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

In German it usually means original or proto-.  Like the earliest or most primitive form of something.  E.g. schrei means scream, so urschrei means primal scream.  Ich hoffe das hilft.

 

Thanks,yes it did.What I half suspected.