A Critical Note on the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM)

In 1809 Carl Friedrich Gauss' masterpiece “Theoria Motus Corporum Coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientium” on the motion of celestial bodies was published. This book contains also a first version of the famous error propagation formula, which is still the basis of modern metrology and of any relevant national and international standard. Gauss' ideas are reflected in the GUM, the “Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement”, published in 1993 by ISO, which is a key document for national measurement institutes and industrial calibration laboratories for evaluating uncertainty in the output of a measurement system.