Book excerpt: Literally an entire course between two covers, Measurement Uncertainty: Methods and Applications, Fourth Edition, presents engineering students with a comprehensive tutorial of measurement uncertainty methods in a logically categorized and readily utilized format. The new uncertainty technologies embodied in both U.S. and international standards have been incorporated into this text with a view toward understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both. The book is designed to also serve as a practical desk reference in situations that commonly confront an experimenter. The text presents the basics of the measurement uncertainty model, non-symmetrical systematic standard uncertainties, random standard uncertainties, the use of correlation, curve-fitting problems, and probability plotting, combining results from different test methods, calibration errors, and uncertainty propagation for both independent and dependent error sources. The author draws on years of experience in industry to direct special attention to the problem of developing confidence in uncertainty analysis results and using measurement uncertainty to select instrumentation systems.