Theoretical Aspects of Measurements

JameB

I work for a drug company & they have a department of Metrology - "Metrology is the science of measurement. Metrology includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement."

Anyways, so what exactly are the theoretical aspects of measurement?

To me, they would be something like finding height of a tree based on the angle at which the light is shining on it and the length of the shadow it casts using the Pythagorean theorum. OR finding the diameter of an atom by measuring the distance between two atoms in solid state and dividing by two.

Is my interpretation correct?

P.S. sorry if I'm leaving out an obvious example, only a first year student :P

Bobbywhy

Hi JameB!
I notice that you copied the first two sentences from the Wiki page "Metrology" in your opening post. I read that entire page (really long and detailed) and I think the answer to your question "what exactly are the theoretical aspects of measurement?" is contained there. If you don't discover a satisfactory answer there, here are two more sites which may help:

“Fundamentals of a Theory of Measurement
Goal of the theory of measurement is to allow a safe acquirement and reproducibility of measuring characteristics. One shall show the necessary conditions for the cognitive requirements to make scientifically relevant measurement predictions possible.”
http://www.helmut-hille.de/theory.html

Secondly, this page describes four theoretical approaches to measurement:
1. “Classical definition
2. Representational theory
3. Information theory
4. Quantum mechanics”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement

Cheers,
Bobbywhy