A guide to GUM

Abstract

It is almost ten years since the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) published guidelines for calculating and expressing uncertainty in values obtained through measurement. The guidelines are commonly referred to as 'GUM'. Despite the emphasis placed on errors and uncertainties in laboratory work in introductory physics courses, awareness of these guidelines is not widespread. Much like the SI system of units, which has taken some time to become established world wide, the ISO guidelines are likely to take many years to become widely known and consistently applied outside the 'metrology community'. Here an introduction is presented to calculating and expressing uncertainty, as recommended in the ISO document, with explanations of some of the more unfamiliar terms it employs, such as standard uncertainty, coverage factor and expanded uncertainty.

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