I hope that Newtonian Physics hasn't changed as much in the last 50 years as many other academic disciplines.
The two leading systems for producing powerful yet economical fuel{air mixtures for 4-sroke ICEs are Mass/flow and Speed/density.
Mass/flows divert a very small percentage of total air through a hot-wire mass meter. This "diversion" is mostly the venturi action of the meter itself measuring only the "small %". (The losses are only those associated with the mass meter.)
The Speed/density system "measures" the airflow speed through the butterfly(s) by their position and then uses plenum air temp and absolute pressure to calculate the real amount at an STP. Losses again are a small fraction of the total.
The problem of sampling sensitivity and accuracy still exist for both systems. Its the old speedo gig, accurate to +-X% of full scale, for all readings from 1mph to full scale mph.
When it comes to transporting the scaled up accuracies the Spd/Dena systems have the edge, kalvin
