July 1999
Intermediate to advanced
272 pages
7h 45m
English
An element of chance enters into every measurement; hence every set of measurements is inherently a sample of certain more or less unknown conditions. Even in the few instances where we believe that the objective reality under measurement is a constant, the measurements of this constant are influenced by chance or unknown causes. Hence, the set of measurements of any quantity, even though the quantity itself be a constant, is a sample of a possible infinite set of measurements which we might make of this same quantity under essentially the same conditions.
From this viewpoint, measurement is a sampling process designed to tell us something about the universe in which we live that will enable us to predict the future in ...