# SDStaff wrong? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 14, 2006, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658 "2006-06-14T06:49:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/21 "2006-06-16T07:32:03Z")
> [@Dan Norder](#): > > The idea that some anonymous guy, despite being the onje this site is made for, is incapable of being wrong is fanwank hero worship at its worst. A behaviour that might otherwise be fanwank hero worship is something else entirely when done with one’s tongue thoroughly encheeked. As you are, I suspect, not currently standing near the end of an airport runway, you might like to consider whether there is an alternate explanation of the sound you are hearing. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/22 "2006-06-16T08:52:59Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > A behaviour that might otherwise be fanwank hero worship is something else entirely when done with one’s tongue thoroughly encheeked. Uh, yeah, and in your case a behavior that might appear to you to be intelligent and witty advice is something else entirely when done with your head throroughly enassed. If you think there is no fanwank hero worshipping going on here, you clearly need to pay more attention. > [@Princhester](#): > > As you are, I suspect, not currently standing near the end of an airport runway, you might like to consider whether there is an alternate explanation of the sound you are hearing. Funny, I am not hearing any sound. I think you got confused by the sensation of a huge blast of air rushing in to try fill that void between your ears. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/23 "2006-06-16T11:00:44Z")
> [@Dan Norder](#): > > If you think there is no fanwank hero worshipping going on here, you clearly need to pay more attention. If you think there’s no competition at WrestleMania you clearly need to pay more attention. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/24 "2006-06-16T12:23:26Z")
> [@Dan Norder](#): > > Uh, yeah, and in your case a behavior that might appear to you to be intelligent and witty advice is something else entirely when done with your head throroughly enassed. > … > > I think you got confused by the sensation of a huge blast of air rushing in to try fill that void between your ears. Let’s try to return to civility in this forum. If you want to say such things, well that’s what the BBQ Pit forum is for. bibliophage moderator ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/25 "2006-06-16T20:45:09Z")
Cecil is never wrong. Of course from time to time there are errors in transcription -it’s to be expected: his assistants are human after all-- but the Great One remains infallible. My favorite example of an _apparent_ error concerns [How can they be sure no two snowflakes are alike?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_392.html) > [@Josef D. Prall](#): > > Dear Cecil: > > Considering some of the dope you dish out, I’d expect your mistakes to be equally spectacular, and you’ve certainly outdone yourself this time. The mind (mine, anyway) boggles at the magnitude of error in your recent dissertation on snowflakes in which you said that over the history of the earth there have been “unimaginable googols of flakes.” A googol is one followed by 100 zeroes (10[sup]100[/sup]). My calculations show that since the earth was formed four billion years ago, the estimated number of flakes (not counting you and me and your other readers) is only about 10[sup]28[/sup]. That leaves a difference of 10[sup]72[/sup]. > > Let’s try to get a handle on the size of that error. The difference between the diameter of a carbon atom’s nucleus and the diameter of the known universe is about 40 orders of magnitude. That still leaves about 32 orders of magnitude to sweep under the rug, or about the difference between a carbon atom and the Milky Way. To put it another way, the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in the known universe is much less than one googol. You’ve exceeded that by a margin of unimaginable to the unimaginable power. I knew you could do it, Cecil. Congratulations. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/26 "2006-06-17T14:29:30Z")
Cecil’s answer on flea circuses was misleading. One can quibble about whether he was ‘wrong’ but I thought his response to the correspondent who wrote in with further information was uncharacteristically graceless. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2006, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/27 "2006-06-17T23:10:57Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > …uncharacteristically graceless. You misspelled “typical, lovable Cecil.” ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/28 "2006-06-18T15:03:49Z")
Back to Staff Reports: Please, let’s distinguish “short” from “wrong.” We’re trying to do readable, concise (well, as concise as we can be) Staff Reports rather than exhaustive and definitive. Our goal (as is Cecil’s) is that our average reader will learn the basic answer, not that they will know everything a world-class expert knows. Second, let’s eliminate typos: Staff Reports are not proofed as extensively as Cecil’s column, and so typos do slip by from time to time. They get corrected when someone points them out, since Staff Reports appear only on our website. Now, to answer the OP, there have been around three, maybe four, Staff Reports that got things completely wrong. These all date from the balmy beginning days when we didn’t have quite so high a standard. When someone pointed out the error, we went back to the SDSAB person who wrote the erroneous report. If they were still around, we enabled correction. If they weren’t, or didn’t want to be bothered with a major fix, we pretty much caused the erroneous Reports to disappear. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658/29 "2006-06-18T20:13:45Z")
I don’t know whether you’d call these outright “wrong”, or just mistaken or incomplete, but I’ve been corrected on two of my Staff Reports. First, in my report on [plasma spheres](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mplasmasphere.html), I omitted (because I didn’t know it at the time) the very important detail that they’re AC, and that charges therefore don’t need to travel far. And second, in my report on [liquid nitrogen in a microwave](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mnukingnitrogen.html), my first paragraph explaining how microwaves work was rather oversimplified: It’s not any specific resonance of water which is excited, and in fact a broad range of frequencies will have the same effect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdstaff-wrong/360658.md?page=1)