The local environment can be an important factor in the quality of measurements. No matter what is being measured, the higher the resolution of the measurement (the finer the detail), the more significant the effect of environmental influences can be. The measurement you’re after is one of many variables.
When you’re measuring one thing, you’re actually taking a snapshot of a large number of variables. Most of the time those variables are so small that they have negligible effect on your primary measurement. In fact, they are probably so small they cannot be measured. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. And there are times when they most certainly do matter.

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