The Half-Life of Facts

Samuel Arbesman

Errata and Updates for the First Edition

Page 47: centi- is one hundredth, not one tenth (thanks to my grandfather who noticed this mistake) Page 83-84: The story about the iron content error of spinach, while beautiful, is itself a pernicious error that has spread for several decades. While incorrect iron content numbers did in fact persist for some time, this was due to other facts rather than a typo. And this did not have to do with Popeye. For details, please see Mike Suttons terrif ic debunking of this myth: http://www.bestthinking.com/articles/science/chemistry/biochemistry/thespinach-popeye-iron-decimal-error-myth-is-finally-busted This was discussed further in my article about error at Wired.com: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/opinion-errors-knowledgecrowdfixing/

Last Updated September 28, 2012