To all,
Here are a few other examples of innumeracy, these were being committed by
writers of arthmetic books for primary schools.
The first years after D-Day in 1971 In Britain sometimes amounts of money
were expressed like this: 1.67-1/2 pounds.
This is an enormity which we had in Holland during the 1820's in a
schoolbook for primary arithmetic:
Willem Bartjens, who had lived between 1593-1673 had been a celebrated
writer of primary arithmetic books. His works were republished and adapted
up into the 1800's. Someone, anonymous, had adapted Bartjens "De Vernieuwde
Rekenkunst" (The Renewed Art of Arithmetic) in about 1820.
He wrote down a reduculous price f5.815626. Then he wrote that there was a
better way to write it:
5 gl. 815-10/16 cents! This person, writer of
schoolbooks for primary arithmetic was so breathtakingly innumerate that he
had recourse to such incredible nonsense; he had no idea about rounding.
Then this amount would have been f5,82. (f is the symbol of guilder).
Han
----- Original Message -----
From: "James R. Frysinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 3:14 PM
Subject: [USMA:12420] Two points
> Editor, Post and Courier
>
> Dear editor,
>
> I read an article by Bob Lang and Johathan Maze in today's paper
> regarding the price of gasoline. They told us that prices for a gallon
> of gas rose from $1.42.9 on Monday morning to $1.47.9 in the afternoon.
> Never before have I seen a number with two decimal points.
>
> Is this sort of innumeracy common among journalists? Let me guess that
> Lang and Maze are less than fond of the metric system, which is
> decimally based. They would undoubtedly have problems with it since it
> allows only one decimal point. They had best stick to gills, pecks, and
> rods.
>
> regards,
> James R. Frysinger
>
> --
> James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
> 10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
> Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
> 843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
> http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
>
>
