Re: Physics Errors (was"Peanuts" Cartoon of 12-7-98)

[Herbert H Gottlieb <herbgottlieb@JUNO.COM>]

 "Quist, Oren Phys" <QuistO@MG.SDSTATE.EDU> writes:
> In the cartoon, the comment is made that "objects in the water dish
> are closer than they appear."  Physics tells us that in this case the
> image is closer than the object, so that the objects are really farther
> away than they appear.

It should be obvious that the cartoon comment should have read,
       "Objects in the water dish appear to be closer than they really
are."

As was already pointed out..."This error is no big deal."

We find such miswording errors almost everywhere we look.
Professor Mario Iona has pointed out thousands of such errors
that appear in newspapers, textbooks, and even journal
articles during the past 30 years. In fact he is still at it
and his findings appear periodically in "The Physics Teacher"
and at annual meetings of the AAPT.

I hate to admit it but Professor Iona has also found many
such errors in the Physics lab manual that I wrote myself
after it was checked out "thoroughly" by experienced editors
of a major publisher.

Herb Gottlieb from New York City
(Where we have already found over 200 physics errors in the World
Book Encyclopedia .)