REM%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (02/12/84)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
I saw the following story in the Peninsula Times-Tribune, noticed the
discrepancy in hundredths vs. thousandths of seconds, went online to
check the original story, found the same discrepancy:
a222 1408 03 Feb 84
AM-Space Shuttle, Bjt,790
URGENT
Shuttle Back in Space, Deploys Satellite
By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The shuttle soared back into space
Friday ...
... ...
The 10th space shuttle mission, this one with Challenger, got off to
a perfect start in weather that could not have been better. The clock
at liftoff stood at 8:00:00:575; the 100-ton shuttle was 57.5
thousandths of a second late getting off. It soared to an orbit 190
miles high, exactly as planned.
Apparently Harry Rosenthal can't do 5th-grade arithmetic with decimal.
Obviously that's 575 thousands, or 57.5 hundredths, not 57.5 thousands
as he reports. If so, why is he writing these scientific stories,
trying to impress the readers with his (faulty) arithmetic, and not
asking somebody a little better at grade-school arithmetic to check
his work? (I know I'm nitpicking, but really publishing something on a
news service that has such an illiterate/dumb error can only confuse
the poor reader who isn't as smart as I am and actually believes the
erroneous calculation; Maybe our school kids are unable to learn
because TV and newspapers are barraging them with such mis-information
that undermines their attempt to understand anything technical?)