Order the athletes by size.
Which one is the biggest?

Who cares?
 If it’s the basketball coach, he wants to know who’s the tallest.
 If it’s the football coach, he wants to know  who’s the heaviest.
If it's the wrestling coach, he want's to know a lot more about the wrestlers.
 If it’s the rescuer needing help to lift the beam up, he wants to know who’s the strongest.
 If it’s the Mafia boss wanting a bodyguard, he wants to know who’s the most skilled fighter.

This problem was presented as a puzzle at Da Vinci Days, 2003:
SEE IT SOLVED


"Who's the biggest?" means to just about everybody that you line 'em up by size and see who's at the head of the line.  This is one of the symptoms of Herpes simpletonisus.

Very few measures have just one component, and one component is all it can have if you're going to line things up by that measurement.  Most measures have many components, like vectors do (tensors, complex numbers, and quaternions, too--and a an surprising number of things require those measures.)  Visualize it.

A really good way to begin to understand how to cure a case of Herpes simpletonisus while thinking about measurement is to get a better understanding of color.   See Color

Sometimes, a good starting place is to try to order ellipses.


 
 

  A lot of things look different when Herpes simpletonisus is cured!
LOOK


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