Every surveying measurement equals a true value plus an error term, since instrument, natural, and personal limitations make true values unmeasurable in practice. Errors are classified into three types — blunders (gross mistakes), systematic errors (errors following a known physical law or mathematical model, and therefore correctable), and random errors (residual errors remaining after blunders and systematic errors are removed, which cannot be individually eliminated but follow a predictable statistical distribution). This belongs to the theory of errors within surveying/geomatics, and underlies the broader concepts of measurement adjustment, precision, and accuracy used to process and validate field observations.
Every surveying measurement equals a true value plus an error term, since instrument, natural, and personal limitations make true values unmeasurable in practice. Errors are classified into three typ…