MATHEMATICS AS A SCIENCE OF MEASUREMENT

Measurement is the assignment of a numerical value to an attribute of an object, or the assignment of a number to a characteristic of a situation. Mathematics is a science of measurement because measurement is an outcome of a sequence of operations carried out under a set of specified, realizable and experimental conditions.

Measurement is fundamental to the teaching and learning of mathematics because it provides a natural way to the development of number concepts and also to the application of mathematics over a very wide field.

Mathematics in a realistic setting provides a logical way in teaching mathematics, in real life context in which number concepts are applied and used. Measurement as a mathematical concept may be more easily accessible to students because it exists all around them in their everyday lives. Students can learn to perform accurately a number of measuring procedures and use the results to make judgements about the magnitude of quantities. One of the most obvious features of mathematics is its fixation with putting numbers to things, by quantification using mathematical formulae.

Quantification covers all those acts which quantify observations and experience by converting them into numbers through counting and measuring. It is thus the basis for mathematics and science. It is universally true that the foundation of quantification is measurement.

Measurement is an empirical counterpart of quantification or a definition of measure. The foundation of quantification is measurement. Measurement is always an empirical procedure, such as calculating the mass of an object by weighing it. By way of contrast, quantification is a kind of theorizing. The relationship between quantification and measurement is a “feedback loop”. Quantification process needs some “measurement” rules. Example: For temperature measurement one has to define a scale for temperatures. The most common one is the Celsius scale, with 0^oC as the freezing point and 100^oC as the boiling temperature of water under standardized air pressure conditions at sea level. A core aspect of quantification is the units of measurement.

In mathematics, magnitudes and multitudes are two kinds of quantity to be measured and they are commensurable with each other. Setting the units of measurement, mathematics also covers such fundamental quantities as space (length, breadth and depth) and time, mass and force etc., The topics such as numbers, number systems, with their kinds and relations, fall into the number theory. Geometry studies the issues of spatial magnitudes: straight line (their length, and relationships as parallels, perpendiculars, angles)  and curved lines (kinds and number and degree) with their relationships (tangents, secants, and asymptotes). Also it encompasses surface and solids, their transformation, measurements and relationships.