BOSTON — Boston’s Museum of Science now says a discrepancy in the golden ratio spotted by a 15-year-old high school student from Virginia wasn’t really a mistake after all.
The museum has issued a statement that goes out of its way to praise Joseph Rosenfeld for his enthusiasm about math, but adds that the way it had stated the equation was the “less common – but no less accurate – way to present it.”
It all started when Joseph, who was visiting the museum with family, noticed minus signs when there should have been plus signs in the equation, which is part of the 34-year-old “Mathematica” exhibit.
The museum originally wrote the teen a letter acknowledging an error in the equation and informing him it would be corrected.
Learn more about the golden ratio.
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