Scale of Measurement vs Equipment Sensitivity: Does Symmetry Always Hold?

[roineust]

Many times when i ask about test theories of SR, i am reminded by forum members, that equipment sensitivity, is equivalent to producing more extreme physical values. For example, you don't necessarily have to go faster in speed, in order to have a better measurement of time dilation, if you have an atomic clock that can go further down the decimal point.

My question is: Does this sort of symmetry/equivalence between scale of measurements (e.g. more speed) and the sensitivity of equipment (e.g. 10^-19 best current atomic clock precision), must always be correct in all of science and physics phenomenon? i.e there must be counter examples, where you actually have to physically go bigger/smaller, faster/slower, stronger/weaker, etc.. in a physical scale, in order to measure a phenomenon, which if you don't go physically enough up or down the scale of one phenomenon, it does not matter how sensitive the equipment is, you will not be able to see another phenomenon appearing in your measurements.

If this question makes any sense and if such an asymmetric phenomenon exists in science and physics, i.e. such a symmetry brake between scale of measurement and sensitivity of equipment, can anyone name such a phenomenon as an example?

If such an example does not exist, but still the question makes sense, i must be asking about a fundamental principle of science and physics, therefor can you please explain in more details?

If the question itself does not make any sense, can you please try to explain why?

 

[Dale]

I don’t think this is a symmetry, but I know of no counterexamples. If you wish to measure an effect you can improve your measurement either by making the effect larger or by making your measurement more precise. It really doesn’t matter what you are measuring.

 

[Ibix]

For a counter example you'd need an effect that wasn't a smooth function of some variable. Something like the photo-electric effect, perhaps? You get no emission at frequencies below the binding energy of electrons. Above it you do.

 

[Dr Transport]

to measure something, you need something more sensitive or if it is a time related phenomenon, something that measures a shorter time. That is why they measure short laser pulses by splitting them and measuring the auto-correlation.

 

[Mister T]

My question is: Does this sort of symmetry/equivalence between scale of measurements (e.g. more speed) and the sensitivity of equipment (e.g. 10^-19 best current atomic clock precision), must always be correct in all of science and physics phenomenon?

As far as I know, people try to do both. That is, measure as precisely as possible and also over as wide a range of values as possible.

In science things are not taken as always correct, instead people devise clever ways to see if a theory is incorrect. As the evidence builds in favor of a theory people gain more confidence in its validity.