Part 1

Chapter 02: Measurement Uncertainty and Noise

All measurements have uncertainty. Computing that deals with measurements must take this into account.

“In most problems of applied mathematics and engineering the data are no better than 1:10^3 or 1:10^4 ... and the answers are not required or meaningful with higher precisions either.”
— John von Neuman, "The Computer and the Brain".
“... even precision levels like 1:10^5 are inadequate for a large part of important problems ... The reasons for this surprising phenomenon are ... that when they are broken down into their constituent elements, [the procedures] turn out to be very long ... Now if there are large numbers of arithmetical operations, the errors occurring in each operation are superposed.”
— John von Neuman, "The Computer and the Brain".
Step 00: Chapter 02 Pre-Assessment (click here to show/hide).
Step 01: Chapter 02 Things to Think About (click here to show/hide).

(The audio for the first half of this livestream is unfortunately corrupted though still usable.)

Step 02:

Read and annotate the chapter. Use ctrl +  to zoom in, ctrl -  to zoom out, and ctrl 0  to zoom back to initial size. You can highlight and annotate content in the document by selecting any text and clicking on the "Annotate" and "Highlight" tools that pop up. More information on how to use the site's annotation tools.

Step 03:
Chapter 02 Principles of Measurements Self-Assessment (click here to show/hide).
Chapter 02 Types of Uncertainty, Precision, Accuracy, and Distributions Self-Assessment (click here to show/hide).
Chapter 02 Uncertainty Type Example Self-Assessment (click here to show/hide).
Chapter 02 Precision Self-Assessment (click here to show/hide).
Chapter 02 Propagating Uncertainty Self-Assessment (click here to show/hide).
Step 04: Chapter 02 Muddiest Point (click here to show/hide).