Measurement uncertainty: A probabilistic theory for intensive entities

The need of technically assessing the properties of an increasing number of objects requires a considerable effort, for issuing the metrological standards, granting theoretical and practical traceability of both the ranking scales and the accuracy figures. The representational theory of measurements is deserving great interest since it provides a simple constructive paradigm for the homogeneous generation of metrological scales and measurements procedures of any kind of attributes (qualities and quantities). This theory, however, still suffers of practical limitations; in particular, the treatment of uncertainty in measurements is not fully formalized. The paper proposes a probabilistic interpretation that coherently models the uncertainty in the measurement of intensive entities. The new theoretical assessments are related to the current standards, and the appropriate propositions are justified with examples. © 1995.