2025 Rising Stars in Measurement Science

Every measurement provides three kinds of information: the size or magnitude of the measurement (a number), a standard of comparison for the measurement (a unit), and an indication of the uncertainty of the measurement. While the number and unit are explicitly represented when a quantity is written, the uncertainty is an aspect of the errors in the measurement results.

The International System of Units or SI system, by international agreement, has fixed measurement units for seven fundamental properties: length, mass, time, temperature, electric current, amount of substance, and luminosity. These are called the SI base units.

Measurement is an indispensable part of analytical chemistry. The result of measurement helps quantify a substance's physical property and compare it with the physical property of another substance. Each measurement comprises two components - a number indicating the magnitude and a unit of measurement as a standard for comparison. Further, the same quantity can be measured using different units of measurement, which leads to differences in magnitude.
A standard set of units has been defined...

Counting is the type of measurement that is free from uncertainty, provided the number of objects being counted does not change during the process. Such measurements result in exact numbers. By counting the eggs in a carton, for instance, one can determine exactly how many eggs are there in the carton. Similarly, the numbers of defined quantities are also exact. For example, 1 foot is exactly 12 inches, 1 inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters, and 1 gram is exactly 0.001 kilograms. Quantities...

Scientists typically make repeated measurements of a quantity to ensure the quality of their findings and to evaluate both the precision and the accuracy of their results. Measurements are said to be precise if they yield very similar results when repeated in the same manner. A measurement is considered accurate if it yields a result that is very close to the true or the accepted value. Precise values agree with each other; accurate values agree with a true value.  Highly accurate...