Limitations
If a definition invokes an historical event, such as having weighed an object sometime in the past, it is no longer repeatable, so it fails to qualify as operational.
Similarly, a specific brick cannot be operationally defined by the process of making it, because that process is historical. (But see the example of the constellation Virgo below for a discussion of how to avoid this difficulty.)
Read more about this topic: Operational Definition
Famous quotes containing the word limitations:
“The limitations of pleasure cannot be overcome by more pleasure.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Much of what contrives to create critical moments in parenting stems from a fundamental misunderstanding as to what the child is capable of at any given age. If a parent misjudges a child’s limitations as well as his own abilities, the potential exists for unreasonable expectations, frustration, disappointment and an unrealistic belief that what the child really needs is to be punished.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)