Across the Universe: Errata
(This column first ran in the Tablet in November, 2005, and reran in 2015… it refers to a column I published here on the blog last month.) Waxing eloquent in a previous column, I referred to Lord Rosse’s giant 19-century telescope as “rightly called a leviathan, it boasted a mirror five feet in diameter set in a tube fifty feet long…” Except, of course, that I was wrong. It’s bigger: the mirror is 72 inches, or six feet, in diameter, and the tube is 54 feet long. It’s not the first mistake I’ve made in print, nor will it be the last. A small group of helpful readers e-mail me regularly with my errata, providing me with a regular dose of humility. In past columns I’ve been sloppy in the way I have defined “heliacal risings” and premature in what definitions of a planet the IAU will consider. My initial defensive reaction is to insist, “it doesn’t matter! Five feet or … Continue reading →