The goal of this book is to present methods for estimating the accuracy of real
measurements, that is, measurements performed in industry, trade, scientific research
– wherever the production process, quality control decision, or the interpretation
of an experiment depends on measurement accuracy. The necessity for this
book arises from the fact that the existing theory of measurement errors contains
significant gaps. In particular, the current theory focuses exclusively on multiple
measurements and overlooks single measurements. Meanwhile, single measurements
are the ones most commonly used in practice. Moreover, the current theory
is incomplete even within the scope of multiple measurements. For example, it does
not provide answers to such fundamental questions as how to translate the inaccuracy
of a measuring instrument into the inaccuracy of a measurement utilizing
this instrument, or how to find the full uncertainty of a measurement result, i.e., the
uncertainty that reflects both systematic and random errors.