Sunday, January 08, 2023

Spot the Error



In what universe does 167 swimming pools equal the Atlantic Ocean? Redditors tried to figure out how this calculation went so wrong. The leading contender is Successful_Unit_7184, who said: 
 

 
I'm not about to do the math myself, but it appears that the writer looked up the volume of the Atlantic Ocean online and then calculated exponentially wrong, which undercuts whatever it is they are trying to say. The Kirksville Daily Express is paywalled after a couple of pages, so I couldn't get far enough to find the online story to link. It may not even exist anymore.

6 comments:

Bicycle Bill said...

"The Kirksville Daily Express is paywalled after a couple of pages, so I couldn't get far enough to find the online story to link. It may not even exist anymore."

As is the NYTimes, Washington Post, Atlantic Magazine, and scads of other websites and news sources – paywalled, that it.

I guess that's why you don't see the term "Information Superhighway" much when referring to the Internet any more.  It's become a toll road.

-"BB"-

smittypap said...

"Reader View" chrome extension is your friend.

Miss Cellania said...

Thanks, smittypap. I am well aware of many ways to get around paywalled sites, but I don't want to make it automatic for me, because my job at Neatorama and my hobby here is to share links for people to read. So I need to always be aware of their availability.

Anonymous said...

There's no P in Atlantic. Let's keep it that way.

WTM said...

Not uncommon. The author of Isaac's Storm, a purported history of the 1900 Galveston hurricane, wrote that the raising of the island was accomplished with "eleven million pounds of sand", when in actuality it was eleven million cubic yards, which is about 2000x eleven million pounds. Quite the error, but no so bad as your example.

ThePast said...

Before any calculations, one should be sober.