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Equation 4 · Part 22 · How Scientific Instruments and Metrology Actually Work

Starting index or lower bound: i=1

uc2(y)=∑i=1N(∂f∂xi)2u2(xi)  +  2∑i=1N−1∑j=i+1N∂f∂xi∂f∂xj u(xi,xj)u_c^2(y) = \sum_{i=1}^{N} \left(\frac{\partial f}{\partial x_i}\right)^2 u^2(x_i) \;+\; 2\sum_{i=1}^{N-1}\sum_{j=i+1}^{N} \frac{\partial f}{\partial x_i}\frac{\partial f}{\partial x_j}\, u(x_i, x_j)
i=1i=1

What this part means

This label says where the repeated addition, multiplication, or accumulation starts. Read its value or condition together with the article’s description of the index.

Its job in the formula

i=1 appears in the bound of this sum. The bound states where the repeated operation starts, ends, or which values it includes.

The passage around this formula

The GUM’s central move is to treat every measured or estimated quantity a result depends on as a random variable with its own estimated standard uncertainty, and then to propagate those uncertainties through the mathematical relationship that produces the final result. If a measurement result y is a function of N input quantities, y = f(x1x_1, x2x_2, …\ldots, xNx_N) , the combined standard uncertainty is obtained from a first-order Taylor expansion of that function: uc2(y)=∑i=1N(∂f∂xi)2u2(xi)  +  2∑i=1N−1∑j=i+1N∂f∂xi∂f∂xj u(xi,xj)u_c^2(y) = \sum_{i=1}^{N} \left(\frac{\partial f}{\partial x_i}\right)^2 u^2(x_i) \;+\; 2\sum_{i=1}^{N-1}\sum_{j=i+1}^{N} \frac{\partial f}{\partial x_i}\frac{\partial f}{\partial x_j}\, u(x_i, x_j). The first sum is the familiar root-sum-of-squares combination of independent contributions, each weighted by how sensitive the final result is to that input (the partial derivative, or “sensitivity coefficient”).…

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Learn the underlying idea

Σ adds a collection of terms. Π multiplies them. The lower and upper labels tell you which terms belong to the collection.

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Sources cited in the surrounding passage

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