FEEDBACK feels the need to launch the Society for the Promotion of Numerate Proofreading (SPNP). Clearly, a scientist who quickly skims a paper, skipping the equations, knows she is going to have to go back and read it properly. The temptation for a proofreader to check the words but skip the funny squiggly numeral things must, similarly, be resisted.
鈥淎lex di Giovanni鈥檚 Internet-Linked French for Beginners book from Usborne promises 鈥渁 complete list of numbers on page 40鈥�. How wide are those margins, then?鈥�
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Furthermore, it is a good idea to consider who your readers might be. A sequence of symbols that is unexceptional to one group of readers can leap out of the page to startle another.
Jeffery Cooper, age 12, points us to an advert for Mercedes cars that bears the slogan 鈥�125! years of innovation鈥� 鈥� which can be found at . 鈥淒oes this imply that the car is hundreds of billions of years old?鈥� Jeffery asks.
William Collins elaborates: 鈥淎s an A-level mathematics student, I know that an exclamation mark placed after a number is called a factorial, and is short for a positive integer multiplied by every consecutive number between it and 1.鈥� According to his spreadsheet, and ours, the claim is even more startling than Jeffery thought, since 125! works out at 1.88 x 10209 鈥� to spell this out, write 鈥�188鈥� followed by the word 鈥渂illion鈥� 23 times.
For comparison, the age of the universe in years multiplied by the number of atoms in it is a relatively minuscule 1090.
The SPNP points out, not at all smugly, that the ad agency might have got away with it 鈥� had they not run the ad in question on the back cover of New 杏吧原创鈥榮 edition of 16 July.
In add-on, sum content of sense is small
THE Home Electricity Saving Tips website gets off to what Craig Borland calls 鈥渁 cracking start鈥�.
鈥淭here are just under 1.6 1000000000000 electricity meters installed in the universe,鈥� it proclaims. Then, before we have had time to work out whether that is a number, what it means or how it was compiled, the article at disintegrates into lost-in-translation gibberish: 鈥淚n add-on, a size figure of refurbished meter, which have been verified and re-calibrated, are used for substitution,鈥� it tells us, adding that: 鈥淪ince the ghetto of electromechanical meter, which represent the successor majority of M in work, tin be very long, the sum content of switch is very large.鈥�
The website goes on like this for another 1000 words or so, then invites us to 鈥淟eave a comment鈥�. We think we had better not.
Drug effects from the Other Side
DAVID RAPLEY is a family doctor, and one of his patients was taken aback by the information leaflet in a packet of quinine sulphate tablets that David had prescribed for night cramps.
鈥淭ell your doctor,鈥� it exhorted, 鈥渋f you notice any of the following side effects鈥� Muscle weakness, excitement, 鈥榮pinning鈥� sensation, confusion, loss of consciousness, coma, death.鈥�
鈥淎s a doctor, one of course encourages the self-reporting of side effects,鈥� says David, 鈥渂ut I am not sure how keen I would be to receive such messages from a medium.鈥�
READER John Whalley was confused by an offer from Perfect Pizza of 鈥淪avings of up to and over 拢250鈥� (4 June). His confusion reminded Peter Northrop of the time he went to a showroom to buy a car. In the window was the proclamation, 鈥淏ring us your old car and we will give you up to a minimum of 拢1000!鈥�
Peter asked the salesperson if that would be more than 拢1000 or less.
鈥淗e had no idea,鈥� Peter reports.
The Rhubarb Triangle strikes again
THE Wakefield Triangle strikes again 鈥� or should we say the Rhubarb Triangle? Last month we reported that Paul Barker鈥檚 computer failed to locate where it was when the train it was on passed through the Wakefield area in Yorkshire, UK. We speculated that rhubarb grown in that area had a disruptive effect on the computer (9 July).
Now Paul Allonby tells us that it is not only computers on trains that are affected. Paul travels frequently to the north of England in his Peugeot 406 car. He has noticed that when he reaches the Wakefield area, his car鈥檚 speedometer reading drops to zero, however fast he is driving. After 10 seconds or so, the speedometer returns to the correct speed. The same thing happens again at the next junction 鈥� presumably, he concludes, because that is where he exits the triangle.
Powerful stuff, that rhubarb.
Your current location is temporarily unavailable
MEANWHILE, the map on Robert Milne鈥檚 鈥渁llegedly smart鈥� phone has told him that his 鈥渃urrent location is temporarily unavailable鈥�.
鈥淪o where does that leave me?鈥� he demands.
FINALLY, Tina Hirschbuehl sends us a photo of a leather sandal. On one of the four straps that form the sandal鈥檚 upper is a label saying: 鈥淲aterproof.鈥� Tina asks: to what does it refer?