This page catalogs some mistakes and omissions in Encyclopædia Britannica (EB) and shows how they have been corrected in Wikipedia. Some errors have already been corrected in Britannica's online version.
These examples can serve as useful reminders of the fact that no encyclopedia can ever expect to be perfectly error-free (which is sometimes forgotten, [1] even by Britannica representatives, [2] especially when Wikipedia is compared to traditional encyclopedias), and as an illustration of the advantages of an editorial process where anybody can correct an error at any time. However, this page is not intended to be a comparison of the overall quality of both encyclopedias, nor as a dismissal of concerns about the reliability of Wikipedia.
Entries should contain a precise citation of the Britannica article in question, which includes its title and
and a wikilink to the Wikipedia article; preferably also a reference to reliable sources for the corrected fact. Corrections in newer editions of Britannica should be noted, too (with a citation in the same way).
Ben Turpin's birthdate is 19 September, 1869 but other years were used at various times in his Hollywood publicity material. In the 1900 US Census he used the year "1869", and his death certificate lists his birthday as "19 September, 1869". Encyclopædia Britannica wrongly lists the year of his birth as "1874". The New York Times obituary mentions the alternative years as fabrications. The Internet Movie Database lists his birthday properly as "19 September, 1869".
For Buster Crabbe there is a conflict between the birthdate given in his official documents, and the one used in his Hollywood publicity biographies. His birth certificate and his Social Security application both use the birthdate of " 7 February, 1908" and that will be used here. The Encyclopædia Britannica and the Internet Movie Database both use an incorrect birthdate based on his Hollywood publicity biography.
Research deemed recent at the beginning of 2004 has uncovered that Abraham Bosse was born around 1604, not 1602, as previously thought. As of May 2005, Encyclopædia Britannica still gives 1601 as his birth year.
It is a basic fact of Russian history that the tsarist administration never allowed the poet Alexander Pushkin to go abroad, a nuisance that he deplored in Eugene Onegin and other verses. Therefore, Britannica's assertion that "frequent guests" of Karlovy Vary included Alexander Pushkin and Tsar Peter I the Great is untrue. -- Ghirlandajo 10:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
In its brief entry on sociologist Manuel Castells EB claims that he is an American. Wikipedia notes that he was born in Spain, and has lived in France and the US. (At least one Wikipedia contributor submitted this as an error of fact to EB but it is uncertain whether EB has, in fact, made the appropriate change.)
Britannica's Nanking History article states:
Sun Jian never settled in Nanking; he was the governor of Changsha while a Chinese warlord and killed by Liu Biao's army while governor. It was Sun Quan who moved the capital of his state to Chien-yeh in 212, following the advice of a dying Zhang Hong. There was no Wu state at the time, as Sun Quan had not yet crowned himself emperor.
By the way, Wikipedia uses Pinyin, while Britannica still uses Wade–Giles. Here is the transliteration of the Wade–Giles in this Britannica article to Pinyin:
Chien-yeh - Jianye Sun Chien - Sun Jian (156-192) Sun Ch'uan - Sun Quan (182-252)
Britannica 2001 DVD I checked stated that 'Polish casualties are not known'. In fact, Polish casualties are known since 1950s. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
EB wrongly credits King Camp Gillette with the invention of the safety razor. The safety razor was invented in the mid 1870s by the Kampfe brothers long before Gillette's first razor, which was patented in 1904. Gillette only made some changes so that the razor could be made more cheaply and the blades were disposable.
According to EB's entry on Henry VIII, he resolved to appeal to the Pope that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been against divine law under "the biblical injunction (Lev.) forbidding marriage with a brother's widow". The entries in Leviticus both forbid a man sexual relations (18 v.v. 16) and give the promise of a childless marriage (20 v.v. 21) with his brother's wife. The inclusion or exclusion of a brother's widow in any interpretation depends on the view of the reader and would, arguably, be not one commonly held. Under Ecclesiastical law at the time of Henry, a man could in fact marry his brother's widow if the marriage was not consummated. In reality, Henry unsuccessfully lobbied the Pope for an annulment of the marriage claiming that Catherine had lied when she said she hadn't consummated her marriage with Arthur. Dainamo
Irrespective of what interpretation Henry used, the EB does not state it as "interpretation" but refers specifically to the injunction of Leviticus 18:16 forbidding marriage with a brother's widow. In other words, if this interpretation was used by Henry as stated then EB is in error by referring to it as fact when the passage unambiguously refers to a Brother's wife. The different treatment of a widow in Judaic law based on Deut 25:5 can arguably be used to enforce this point. Dainamo 18:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
According to Britannica [6], Romanian revolutionary leader Tudor Vladimirescu was assassinated on 7 June instead of 27 May, 1821, the real date.
Britannica lists the birthname of William J. Clinton ( Bill Clinton) as "William Jefferson Blythe IV" [7]. It has been confirmed by the Clinton Library [8] that the correct birthname is "William Jefferson Blythe III". Refer to respective Talk thread.
According to Britannica Sheila Scott was born on 27 April, 1927. The Oxford DNB, based on her birth certificate, confirms her birth date was actually 27 April, 1922.
Many Scottish peers are referred to in the style of John Carter, 6th Viscount of Mars, rather than the usual John Carter, 6th Viscount Mars. As Mackensen put it, almost all Scottish viscountcies use the preposition "of". No other viscountcies do this. Britannica refers to, for instance, William Gordon, 6th Viscount Kenmure instead of William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure. grendel| khan 20:44, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
The American National Biography, Washington Post, and Guardian confirm his birth date was 15 September, 1913 not "Sept. 5, 1913", the date given by Britannica. lots of issues | leave me a message 22:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
Changed to "born Sept. 15, 1913" in the current online edition. NB: This US DOJ page (which cites Attorneys General of the United States, 1789-1985, U.S. Department of Justice, 1985) gives the September 5, 1913 date too. Regards, HaeB ( talk) 19:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Recent research has established that Josquin Desprez was born between 1450 and 1455, and first went to Italy in the 1480s, NOT in 1459 as Britannica has it. The confusion arose because a singer with a similar name was part of the Sforza chapel in Milan from 1459 to 1472; this is now known to be a different person. The New Grove online also has it right ( [9]). Josquin was in France the whole time, and Britannica is writing about a completely different person. Antandrus (talk) 03:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
The short online version is very different from the similarly short version on the CD, but both are extremely inaccurate. In fact, almost every statement in the online version is incorrect:
According to
Roger Waters was born on Sept. 6, 1944. According to this Pink Floyd FAQ this is an error, and the correct birth date is September 6, 1943, as confirmed by Mark Fenwick, Roger Waters' manager. That is the date found in the Wikipedia article Roger Waters. regards, High on a tree 01:52, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
According to Encyclopædia Britannica [11] it is 21 December ( 9 Dec OS), 1879; but this date was made up by Stalin later in his life. The actual date and the one in the Wikipedia article is 18 December ( 6 Dec OS), 1878.
Britannica article on Kostroma says that "the city's cathedral, dating from 1239 and rebuilt in 1773, is situated in the kremlin (fortress) and is a fine example of old Russian architecture". Actually, the Dormition cathedral, first mentioned in the 16th century, was destroyed by the Bolsheviks on June 8, 1934. They cited the ugliness of this Neoclassical structure as a pretext for its demolition, so the cathedral could hardly be described as "a fine example of old Russian architecture". -- Ghirlandajo 10:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Britannica article on Dolgoruky Family alleges that its origins "are believed by some to go back to Yury Dolgoruky". This is a typical example of pseudo-science. Every genealogical account of the family, starting with the 16th-century Royal Genealogical Book and the 17th-century Velvet Book, asserts their descent from one of medieval princes of Obolensk, whose sobriquet was Dolgoruky (or the "Long-Armed"). In fact, their original surname was "Dolgorukov-Obolensky" but they dropped the second part of this name later in history. Therefore, the family descended not from Vladimir Monomakh or his son Yury, as Britannica states, but from his cousin and woe Oleg of Chernigov. -- Ghirlandajo 10:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
According to Encyclopædia Britannica [12], he was "a last scion of the ancient Basarab dynasty". However, according to the Wikipedia article, he was not a real heir to the dynasty, but it was a fabricated lineage. bogdan 22:55, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
A knowledgeable Wikipedia contributor disputes Britannica's claim that the old Republican Party officially changed its name to Democratic-Republican Party in the year 1798. [13] The details of the dispute can be found here. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition claimed that the name was officially changed in 1801. [14] This is also disputed. In fact, the claim of any official name change prior to the break-up of the party is disputed.
Ignaz Semmelweis reduced the mortality rate from puerperal fever an order of magnitude, by implementing chlorine handwash for doctors. His findings were reported in the Viennese Medical Weekly ( Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift. The editor remarked sarcastically that it was time people stopped being misled about the theory of chlorine washings.
A popular translation into English is "it was time to stop the nonsense of hand washing with chlorine", it probably originates from Encyclopædia Britannica (e.g. the Semmelweis entry of Encyclopædia Britannica 2004 ed. (CD version)). There is little support for the nonsense translation however. The page in question (page 536 of the Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift 6, 1856) is accessible on the Internet (access 11 May 2008). Actual quote is "'Wir glaubten diese Chlorwaschungs-Theorie habe sich längst überlebt; die Erfahrungen und statistischen Ausweise der meisten geburtshilflichen Anstalten protestiren (sic) gegen obige Anschauung; es wäre an der Zeit sich von dieser Theorie nicht weiter irreführen zu lassen. D. Red." [D. Red. = Die Redaktion]. Irreführen means to misguide, deceive or mislead - there is really no support for the nonsense English translation. Power.corrupts ( talk) 12:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
"Red Army Faction (RAF)." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 30 Nov. 2009 < http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/494068/Red-Army-Faction>.
This article about the most well-known German postwar terrorist group contains several factual errors:
As a minor concern, "formed in 1968" is a bit misleading - while it is true that some of the core members met in 1968, 1970 is generally given as the year that the group actually formed. For example, in this chronology on the web site of the BPB (the German government agency for historical education), Professor Christopher Daase states that the beginning of the Rote Armee Fraktion is either dated to Baader's escape in May 1970 or the return of him and his liberators from Jordan in August 1970.
Britannica article: [15]. Contains errors including: Garret Hobart was admitted to the bar in 1866, not 1869. He served two one-year terms in the State Assembly, not one two year terms. He left the State Senate in 1883, not 1882.
There is a widely held misconception that the Slovene-American author Louis Adamic was born on 21 or 23 March 1899, such dates are also engraved on Adamic's gravestone and included in his biography in the Britannica. However, sources from his homeland clarify that he was actually born on 23 March 1898; the wrong date was written in Adamic's certificate of origin by the mayor in Grosuplje in 1913, in order to enable Adamic to emigrate; as a 15-year old he wouldn't be permitted to do so because he was to be conscripted.
Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD-ROM "The naval bombardment began on February 16 but was halted by bad weather and not resumed until February 25." Wikipedia's Gallipoli Campaign article states that the first attack started on 19 February. So does the History Learning Site.
The 2004 Britannica CD says Bates introduced Wallace to etymology. Britannica has since corrected etymology to entomology.
In its article on Western Philosophy > Hellenistic and Roman philosophy > Stoicism, the Encyclopedia Britannica says “The Stoic system was created by a Syrian, Zeno of Citium (c. 335–c. 263 BC), who went to Athens as a merchant but lost his fortune at sea.” Zeno of Citium, however, was not Syrian. He was from the city of Citium, Cyprus, which at that time was ruled by Ptolemaic Egypt, whereas Syria was ruled by the Seleucid Empire. Our two surviving ancient biographies of Zeno, Diogenes Laertius’Lives of the Eminent Philosophers and the Suda identify him as ethnically Phoenician. Further, the ancient biographies not only do not say that Zeno lost his fortune at sea (referring to the shipwreck that caused him to stay in Athens and take up philosophy), the biography preserved by Diogenes Laertius says he had a fortune of over a thousand talents when he took up residence in Athens.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Western-philosophy/Hellenistic-and-Roman-philosophy#ref8582 accessed 5 December 2020
The online edition of Britannica says in its entry on St. Louis that "the city’s boundaries have remained unchanged since 1876, when it became administratively independent." [16] (accessed April 8, 2021) While the vote on administrative independence occurred on August 28, 1876, independence from the county did not officially happen until March of 1877, with a recount of the votes taking place in between.
EB's article on spiral suffers from severe problems in the layout of mathematical formula, at least in the online version. The formula for the logarithmic spiral is given as exp θ cot φ, which should be exp(θ cot φ). See logarithmic spiral.
In "NP-complete problem" you can find the statement
The insert "(if one exists)" makes clear that the author does not understand that only decision problems belong to the class NP. Every instance of every problem in NP has a solution: it is either YES or NO. Only YES answers need to be verified quickly. See Complexity classes P and NP.
The EB entry on Henri Poincaré gives the following description of the Poincaré conjecture: "Poincaré asked if a three-dimensional manifold in which every curve can be shrunk to a point is topologically equivalent to a three-dimensional sphere (a solid ball). This problem (now known as the Poincaré conjecture)..."
It would seem that EB is equating a 3-sphere with a solid ball, which is completely wrong. The actual entry on the conjecture is part of the topology entry and is correct. Not a surprise really, since the topology entry was written by RH Bing.
Wikipedia's entries on Poincaré and his conjecture make no such mistake, or any mathematical mistakes, for that matter (as of now).
In the article about "real number", it is claimed that
This is incorrect, since it doesn't take the empty set into account, which has an upper bound but not a smallest upper bound.
This is not correct. In integration and measure theory, the real numbers are sometimes extended by adding two symbols, +∞ and -∞, neither of which is a transfinite number. A transfinite number is either a cardinal number of an infinite set, or an ordinal number of an infinite well-ordered set. See real number and extended real number line.
The entry about "transfinite number" in EB claims that aleph-one is the cardinality of the real numbers. This is in fact neither provable nor disprovable in the currently accepted formalization of set theory; see cardinality and continuum hypothesis for the full story.
[ [18]]
The continuum hypothesis asserts that aleph_1==c, where c is the cardinality of the "large" infinite set of real numbers (called the continuum in set theory). However, the truth of the continuum hypothesis depends on the version of set theory you are using and so is undecidable.
Would Wikipedia also like to claim that it has found an error on MathWorld? 67.188.118.64 22:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The entry in EB is titled The Ferrer diagram. Of course, this notion is named after Norman Ferrers and is corrected in this subsection.
Encyclopædia Britannica states in its article about Carl Friedrich Gauss following ( [19]): Gauss’s first significant discovery, in 1792, was that a regular polygon of 17 sides can be constructed by ruler and compass alone. In fact, he made this discovery in 1796, four years later than EB claims. -- QWerk ( talk) 19:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
According to mathematician J. F. Queiró from the University of Coimbra, [20] [21] he notified Britannica in 2002 about "serious mistakes of fact in two articles where the Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunes is mentioned", namely the entries "loxodrome" and "analytic geometry - curves of double curvature" in the online and DVD versions, also in "loxodrome" in the 1994-2000 electronic version (CD-ROM):
Queiró states:
Both errors still persist in
Rhumb line and Pedro Nunes do not contain these errors.
Regards, HaeB ( talk) 01:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
EB states http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1772809/Sathya-Sai-Baba, retrieved 22 June 2013
The correct information with reputable references in the Wikipedia article Satya Sai Baba movement states, retrieved 22 June 2013
References
Andries ( talk) 23:53, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
EB claims in its article on steam power that Sadi Carnot gave the formula for the efficiency of a steam engine as (T1-T2)/T1, where T1 (T2) is the absolute temperature of the hot (cold) reservoir. Carnot actually did not give this formula. He rather stated that the efficiency is some function of the two temperatures, independent of the working fluid. The concept of absolute temperature was unknown to him, so he was not able to put the formula into the form accredited to him.
EB states that Crookes Radiometer rotates the direction it does because of pressure differences. This may not be accurate. It rotates due to the effect of the gas molecules on the edges of the vanes. Some argue that the Einstein effect acting on the edges of the vanes is a pressure difference, just as the Reynolds effect of thermal transpiration is also a pressure difference.
This topic open for debate, which is what the Wikipedia article states. EB simply states the one characterization as fact.
EB claims in its leap year article that years divisible by 4000 may be non-leap years. This is in fact not an official rule and would not increase the calendar's accuracy. See leap year.
We are correcting for an error in syncronization between the day and the year. ( orbit vs rotation ).
If this explanation is lacking in any way, please feel free to leave feedback on my talk page as to how the explanation can be made simpler and clearer. I have been interested in this idea for decades, and did the math as far back as 4th grade. Artoftransformation 22:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
In its article on fish, EB claims
This was the view of Charles Darwin; nowadays it is generally accepted that primitive lungs came first and swim bladders evolved from them. See e.g. [22], [23].
I think your assumption "that it is generally accepted" is false. Richard Dawkins agrees with Darwin on this. I would suggest it is still open to debate.
In The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins' newest book, he says that swim bladders evolved from primitive lungs.
If both sides in this debate can adduce evidence to support their assertions, I would suggest that both are correct. Both forms of evolutionary development could easily have happened separately.
anyway it's wrong to mention only one of them. with no hint to a discussion in progress. ergo - eb is wrong and this article at wiki is right :-)
Under "refractive index" in EB, the definition of the refractive index does not clarify the crucial distinction between phase velocity and signal velocity; it is stated that the velocity of x-rays in glass is higher than the velocity of x-rays in a vacuum. This is true for the phase velocity, but the speed with which information can be transmitted is not higher in glass than in a vacuum.
I agree that that is pretty serious if correctly represented -- AndrewCates 15:23, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
In the entry on "Semen", EB writes:
In fact, the vas deferens propels sperm directly from the epididymis to the outside during ejaculation. Sperm is stored before the ejaculation in the epididymis, not in the ampulla. They describe it correctly in their article on "Ejaculation". See also Ejaculation and vas deferens.
The article on "Electric charge" claims that 1 Coulomb equals 3 billion statcoulombs. This is incorrect.
Ok, so the exact number is 2,997,961,386.257345. Perhaps they should have added roughly 3,000,000,000 esu. --Cantus
Which could be pretty serious if you were relying on it! --Soapy
Actually the original quote does not suggest 10 significant figures since the zeros if not followed by a decimal point are not considered significant but only place holders. So the original quote only has 1 significant figure. I am pretty sure that that was not by accident. -- René Kanters
You are all incorrect. Trailing zeroes are not presumed significant figures unless there is a bar over a zero (or sometimes under it). This convention is common in chemistry, but seen in other scientific fields as well. Maybe they don't teach this in science classes anymore, but one can hardly fault EB for following it. Besides, the online concise article for "electric charge" now says "The unit of charge is the coulomb, which consists of 6.24 * 10^18 natural units of electric charge" so this whole "error" has been corrected and this listing is now irrelevant. JamieMcCarthy 13:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Apparently lots of people learnt something about significant digits in school. Apparently there are several different conventions. Apparently there is a definition that states an exact relationship between the two units, with enormous accuracy. Who is right? Nobody is. It is unprofessional of EB to mention a "close" number and ignore the (exact) definition. -- REW 24 july 2007 9:43 CEST.
The article technetium (April 28, 2018) claims that TcCl6 is an instance of technetium compound (in an oxidation state +6). However, the existence of technetium hexachloride was never confirmed. Lotus 50 ( talk) 18:17, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
EB has two articles about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: one about the principle itself and another one inside the quantum mechanics treatment. Unfortunately, the two articles give different formulas: one uses h/2π and the other h/4π. Furthermore, they never make clear what exactly is meant by "uncertainty".
In the article Organic Compounds/Alcohols/Ethanol, EB claims that yeast secrete an enzyme called "zymase" to convert sugar into alcohol. In fact there is no such secreted enzyme; the conversion is much more complicated and takes place within the yeast cell. See alcohol dehydrogenase.
In their article on cryptology, Britannica credits US inventor Edward Hebern for the rotor machine (a type of cipher machine of which the German Enigma machine is the most famous example). Research published in January 2003 revealed that the machine had been invented earlier by Dutch engineers Van Hengel and Spengler. This has been reflected in the Wikipedia article on rotor machines since September 2004; the EB is still out of date. — Matt Crypto 19:13, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
From the Nitroglycerin talk page:
In the article water, Britannica Online says water is a "colourless, tasteless, and odourless liquid at room temperature". No mention is made of the fact that actually water has an intrisic color.
In the article 'Dogon language' the EB recites the popular belief that Dogon, the language spoken by the Dogon peoples, is one language (acknowledging that 'six dialects of Dogon have been identified'). However, starting with Bertho (1953) it has been established that Dogon is in fact a family with a high internal diversity and that the varieties are not merely dialects of one monolithic language. In the most recent published survey, Hochstetler (2004) distinguishes at least seventeen distinct speech varieties, noting that many of these are not mutually intelligible. The Wikipedia article Dogon languages has all the details.
Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/707370/Dogon-language
In the article 'Nigeria', section 'Linguistic composition' the EB (2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD) claims that the Nigerian languages Yoruba and Igbo, among others, are Kwa languages. It is true that Joseph Greenberg classified them as such in his 1966 The Languages of Africa, but since Bennett & Sterk 1977 it is widely accepted that the Yoruboid and Igboid languages are in fact members of the Benue-Congo family, as acknowledged in the Wikipedia article Kwa languages. Strangely enough, EB's article on the Kwa languages has it right; it seems that they have updated the main article, but have forgotten to update other ones affected by advancing insights.
Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/414840/Nigeria
In its article "Kwa languages", EB2005 claims that "..of these languages [i.e. the Left bank Kwa languages] the Gbe cluster (better known as Ewe) is by far the largest with some two million speakers."
This statement is erroneous and misleading because it first equates Ewe to Gbe and then takes into account only the speakers of Ewe, the largest of the Gbe languages. According to recent statistics (Ethologue 15th edition, Kluge 2002), Ewe has about three million speakers and other Gbe languages like Fon and Aja account for at least another 1,5 million each. EB2005 furthermore fails to mention that Ewe as a term for the Gbe cluster as a whole has fallen out of use at least since 1980 (Capo 1988, 1991, Kluge 2002, Ameka 2001). To add to the confusion, EB2005 claims in its article 'Fon' that Fon is a dialect of Ewe and that "the Fon numbered some 3,010,000 in the late 20th century"
The entry (I saw it in 2000 or 2001 editions, needs to be checked):
I couldn't understand the purpose of this word "Beloruska" implanted into the English-language text until I looked up the entries for other languages. In the article on Bulgarian language it said "bulgarski ezik," so I figured here we should have the name of our own language in our own tongue. This should then have read "bielaruskaja mova". To the best of my knowledge, "Beloruska" is the adjective "Belarusian" in Bulgarian and some other Slavic languages.
More mistakes or misconceptions in this short but error-ridden entry
This should then have read "bielaruskaja mova". That statement is wrong. Spelling is always a problem, but Beloruska is much closer to reality than "bielaruskaja"
In its article "Kalenjin", EB2005 defines Kalenjin as follows: "any member of the Nandi, Kipsikis, Pokot, Tatoga, and other related peoples of west-central Kenya, northern Tanzania, and Uganda who speak Nilotic languages of the Nilo-Saharan language family".
First, a glaring error: the Tatoga (Datoga) are not Kalenjin, but form together with the Omotik a separate branch of the Southern Nilotes called Omotik-Datoga (cf. Rottland 1982, Ethnologue 15th edition). This is outlined in the Wikipedia articles Kalenjin languages and Southern Nilotic languages.
Second, this entry could be interpreted as suggesting that the Maasai and the Luo, also speakers of Nilotic languages and certainly historically and genetically related to the peoples mentioned, are Kalenjin peoples as well. In fact, Maasai and Luo are Eastern Nilotic and Western Nilotic languages, respectively, whereas the Kalenjin languages are Southern Nilotic languages; EB2005 fails to make this important distinction.
Third, EB fails to make clear that there are two crucially different uses of the term Kalenjin and indiscriminately uses 'Kalenjin' in wholly different contexts. In its article 'Eastern Africa', subsection 'Identifying and classifying peoples', it observes that "the Kalenjin of western Kenya have come into being since 1960 by a conscious fusing together of older and smaller peoples". 'Kalenjin' in this context is the name various Nandi-speaking peoples adopted in the late 1940's/early 1950's when they united to form a larger ethnical and political entity (cf. Kalenjin and references cited therein). This use is different from the term 'Kalenjin' in the linguistic sense as outlined in the Wikipedia articles Kalenjin languages and Kalenjin language.
In the article 'Niger-Congo languages', section 'Early records', the EB (2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD) tells us that The first extant book written in an African language was published in 1624 (...) It consists of a catechism in Portuguese with an interlinear translation into Kongo. It probably should have read "the first extant book written in a sub-Saharan African, or more specifically, in a Niger-Congo language", because literature has been produced in some African languages long before this; see for example Old Nubian language, Coptic language and others.
In the entry for 'wrench' [26] Britannica states: 'On one type the jaws are at right angles to the handle; this wrench, invented by Charles Moncky, is known as a monkey wrench.' They do not state (and perhaps they should) when he invented it but if it's taken to be in 1858, the OED has an entry thus: '?1807 in E. S. Dane Peter Stubs & Lancashire Hand Tool Industry (1973) 219 Fleetwood, Richard..Parr, Rainford. Screw plates, lathes, clock engines..monkey wrenches, taps.' It would appear that the phrase was already in useage prior to 1858.
Matsu is
However, EB chose to give only an article on the first (single island), thereby misguiding the reader into thinking that Matsu of the Republic of China is one island (Nankan). (See Matsu Island)
However, the country controls the entire mini-archipelago of the Matsu Islands as a county (called Lienchiang). Although Nankan is the largest of the Matsu Islands, when referring to Matsu, one usually speaks of the entire archipelago. Metonymy, in this case, ignores other integral parts of Matsu and provides an incomplete picture of Lienchiang County.
Same problem as Matsu (see above). See also Quemoy.
EB claims that Chotyn lies in Moldova (actually it lies in Ukraine), errors in the location of Belovezhskaya Forest, and that the European bison only exists in Poland (as opposed to elsewhere in Eastern Europe). All these errors were discovered by a twelve-year-old boy. (BBC)
In 2008, Hamlet Isakhanli, scientist and poet, founder and president of Khazar University conducted a comparison of Encyclopaedia Britannica and English Wikipedia on Azerbaijan and related subjects. His study found that Wikipedia has covered the subject much wider, more accurate and detailed, even though with some disbalances, and that Wikipedia is best source for the first approximation. The confused identity of Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev in Britannica has been already corrected in its online version. [3]
EB claims that Réseau Jean Bernard is the deepest cave in the world, but this fact, although widely reported, is incorrect. There are at least three caves known to be deeper [27].
In
Britannica claims that Lafia is a town in the Plateau State of central Nigeria. Actually, it is the capital of the neighboring state Nasarawa, according to the state's home page [28].
The likely reason for this error is the fact that Nasarawa was newly formed in 1996 by dividing Plateau State - apparently the Britannica article has not been updated during the last 11 years.
10 mistakes/inaccuracies/outdated information/dubious descriptions in an article of 450 words... and no action on their behalf in the past seven months. Details here.
The modern city has a hydroelectric power plant as well as ... FALSE!
1 mistake in an article of 80 words. -- Smihael ( talk) 14:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Britannica states: "(July 15, 1410), battle fought at Tannenberg (Polish: Stębark)". In fact as our article clearly explains, Tannenberg is a German name for Grunwald and Stębark is a nearby village. There is a ton of sources referring to "Battle of Grunwald" (the Polish name of the battle is "bitwa pod Grunwaldem"), the few sources that refer to the battle of Stębark refer to the 1914 battle... -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
The article
states that "It is 865 mi (1,390 km) long". This disagrees with most reference works (such as Brockhaus) and school books in Germany, which give a length of around 1320km. But even that number is too high, as biologist Bruno Kremer found during research for a 2010 book ( ISBN 978-3874634564) - the correct length is around 1230km. The error is conjectured to have come from a simple transposition of digits, which then permeated and persisted for decades. See also Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-03-29/In the news.
The article: " [30]" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 30 Dec. 2014 states that "The summit is in French territory." However this is only the French point of view. In official Italian cartography the summit is exactly on the French-Italian border. This is correctly pointed out in the Wikipedia article " [31]" where the history of the controversy over the summit ownership is well explained. The only legally binding French-Italian treatise on the Alpine borders states that the summit is indeed right on the border; however, French maps always put the summit well within French borders.
The article: Flag of American Samoa (visited March 27, 2018) states that "The U.S. flag was officially hoisted over American Samoa on April 27, 1900", and that the American Samoan flag "became official on April 27, 1960, the day the first constitution of American Samoa went into effect and the 60th anniversary of the first hoisting of the U.S. flag in Samoa." This is incorrect. The U.S. flag was first hoisted on April 17, 1900, and the American Samoan flag was adopted 60 years to the day later. This date, April 17, is still celebrated as Flag Day in American Samoa, and is one of its biggest holidays. Chubbles ( talk) 20:09, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
EB lists social choice theory as a synonym for rational choice theory. This is not correct; the two are very different fields. Closed Limelike Curves ( talk) 00:57, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
This may be a bit nitpicky, but EB thinks there is hip hop music (which they problematically call rap) that is either not rhythmic or non-rhyming. I suppose there may be hip hop with no rhymes at all (I've never heard of it), but it's certainly always rhythmic. Also, hip hop as the backing music for rap, the musical style incorporating rhythmic and/or rhyming speech that became the movement's most lasting and influential art form is a bit odd, I think. They apparently use "hip hop" to refer to the beat/instrumentation behind the rapping, which is not normal, at least -- if "rap" is the "musical style", then the "backing music" is an integral part of it, and "rap" doesn't "incorporate" a kind of speech... it is a kind of speech, and is only a "musical style" when combined with "hip hop". Furthermore, "most lasting and influential art form" being applied to "rap" is silly -- graffiti, breakdancing and DJing have lasted just as long as rapping (early 70s to present); I suppose EB is allowed to be biased and call "rap" more influential than DJing, but I note that rapping is not widely used outside of hip hop, while DJing had a major influence on electronic music. Of course, if by "rap", they are referring to hip hop music, then that would make sense, but that would be inconsistent with the first part. So, it's at best confusingly written and misleading. Tuf-Kat 19:19, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
It seems that hip-hop music is the hardest genre for some music scholars to write about. -- FuriousFreddy 23:46, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
The above statement is somewhat confusing in and of itself. Very simply Britannica's error is that hip-hop is not simply a form of music, but a culture. It encompasses four basic elements- graffiti, breakdancing, DJing and MCing. Although, some people do incorrectly use the term "hip-hop" to describe the musical genre of rap. Rap music is the combination of two elements of hip-hop culture (the DJ and the MC) but it is NOT synonymous with hip-hop. It is impossible to have rap music without a DJ and an MC. However an art form known as "spoken word" consists of a person rythmically reciting poetry. Some may consider this person an "MC" without a DJ.
Cadentsoul
00:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Here's the full text of the first paragraph of the Britannica article: cultural movement that attained widespread popularity in the 1980s and '90s; also, the backing music for rap, the musical style incorporating rhythmic and/or rhyming speech that became the movement's most lasting and influential art form. I agree that the author was probably going for what Cadentsoul explained, but there are at least 5 errors in this one sentence:
Tuf-Kat ( talk) 08:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Concise EB sees fenghuang as female ( EB article). But the accurate (as defined in all non-children Chinese dictionaries) and still popular Chinese mythology says that fenghuang is a species with both males and females. In fact, "full" EB http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9033972 says "Like the qilin (a unicorn-like creature), the fenghuang is often considered to signify both male and female elements [...]".
According to a long-time Wikipedian (in a post on Slashdot), Britannica states (see also the title of the article Zappa, Francis Vincent) that Frank Zappa was originally named "Francis", while the Wikipedia article is consistent with Zappa's autobiography in stating that he was christened "Frank" and was never named "Francis".
In its article "Qala'un Mosque", EB2005 claims that the Mosque is a "building complex, including a mausoleum, a madrasah, and a hospital, built in 1283-85 on the site of present-day Cairo by the fifth Mamluk sultan."
There is, indeed, a building complex in Cairo that was built in 1283-85 by the fifth Mamluk sultan, and this complex includes a mausoleum, a madrasah and a hospital. However, this complex is not the Qala'un Mosque; usually, it is called the Qala'un Complex. The Qala'un Mosque itself, more exactly termed the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qala'un Mosque is generally not considered part of the complex (though it is adjacent to it), and it was built about forty years later (in 1318) by the Mamluk sultan Al-Nasr Muhammad, son of Qalawun referred to as 'the fifth Mamluk sultan' by EB2005. This EB2005 article therefore is a dangerous misnomer at best. The EB article proceeds to talk about the madrasah and mausoleum of the older Qala'un Complex and fails to even mention anything about the history or the architecture of the (very notable) Mosque itself.
Just one correction, the Qala'un Mosque mentioned in Wikipedia, which is officially termed the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qala'un Mosque, is not the one adjacent to the Qala'un Complex. In fact, the Qala'un Mosque (Mosque of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad) is located in the Cairo Citadel, and the Qala'un Complex is close to Khan el-Khalili within the city. But there is one more mosque of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, officially termed the Madrasah and Tomb of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, which is adjacent to the Qala'un Complex. It was initiated by Kitbugha in 1295 and completed by al-Nasir Muhammad in 1304. -- Chapultepec ( talk) 01:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
In the traditional religion of the Gbe peoples, there is a creator deity called Mawu (see Ewe (people), Dahomey mythology and Mawu). EB2005, in its article 'Ewe', states that "Ewe religion is organized around a creator god, Mawa". A typo, and an unfortunate one at that — who is going to point out that this foreign language word should in fact be spelled Mawu?
EB claims that full name of Casanova is " Giovanni Giacomo Casanova", but according to his birth certificate the right name is "Giacomo Girolamo Casanova" (take a look at the transcription of the certificate, here).
The article on the US National Security Agency (NSA) in EB's online edition, December 2005, states that:
This is false. The NSA maintains an extensive website which includes an "about NSA page", numerous press releases, a section on declassification initiatives, a kid's zone, etc. Moreover, the "NSA press room" page states that, "The NSA/CSS Public and Media Affairs Office fosters relationships with media outlets throughout the world, responding to thousands of requests each year for information about NSA/CSS and its missions, interviews with leadership or experts, and filming opportunities."
The NSA has communicated with the public or press in the past as well. Bobby Ray Inman, the NSA director in the late 1970s, provided information to the press (as long as it was in NSA's interests), even appearing on TV (ABC Nightline). — Matt Crypto 13:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
EB states that, "although some of the structures were built in the 20th century, most date to the 17th and 18th centuries". This is not true. There isn't one surviving 17th century building in the square (though it was originally developed in the 17th century); well under half are 18th century (only 4-5, 9-13, 15, 20, 31A and 33) ; and there are a good number which date to the 19th century, which EB omits to mention altogether. Wikipedia has complete information based on the authoritative Survey of London, confirmed by personal observation and updated for recent reconstructions (none of which involved magically reappearing a 17th century building). Hawkestone 21:58, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The Britannica article is a catalogue of errors and omissions. It doesn't mention that his tally of PGA Tour wins was revised from 61 to 62 when British Open victories before 1995 were retrospectively designated as PGA Tour wins in 2002. It doesn't mention that from 1968 the PGA Tour was independent of the Professional Golfers' Association of America, meaning that it is incorrect about the sanctioning body for all his PGA Tour wins after that date (indeed it doesn't mention the PGA Tour at all). The statement that he was the leading figure in world golf through to the mid 1960s is incomplete at best (see Jack Nicklaus). There is no such event as the "PGA Senior Open"; in 1981 he won the United States Senior Open, which is organised by the USGA not the PGA. He did however win the Senior PGA Championship in 1980 and 1984, as well as two other senior majors which EB doesn't mention at all.
As well as getting its facts wrong, EB omits all the broader reasons why Palmer is important in the history of golf: his charismatic prominence in the early TV era; his rivalry with Nicklaus; his popularisation of the British Open in the U.S; his status as the first client of the key figure in the history of sports marketing ( Mark McCormack). Hawkestone 22:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
In 2006, the online edition of EB lists French and English as official languages. However this has never been the case. English was added as an official language in a proposal by Laurent Desiré Kabila, but that proposed constitution never got promulgated. The newest constitution still specifies French is the only official language, along with 4 national languages.
-- moyogo 09:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Update: EB has updated this webpage accordingly.
Three errors have been identified over the years; all of them have been corrected. They were:
Britannica 2004 CD dates it to 1923 in the article on "Paramount Pictures Corporation", but correctly dates it to 1956 in the "Motion Picture" article. He made two movies, one in each of the noted years.
Britannica wrongly states "The element was named after the United States of America." while others falsely state North America.
[4]
[5]
The name was actually chosen from listener suggestions from Adventures of Science. "Europium, was named after Europe, it made perfect sense to Seaborg that element 95 be named
americium."
[6]
One statement that has been sometimes called an error is Britannica's statement in the article "Encyclopædia Britannica" that it is the "oldest and largest English-language general encyclopedia." If Wikipedia's claim to be an encyclopedia is accepted, then this statement is erroneous because Wikipedia contains more words and articles than Britannica. (Source: Wikipedia article " Wikipedia") Although Britannica has at times referred to Wikipedia as an encyclopedia [33], it has also referred to Wikipedia as "the Internet database that allows anyone... to edit" when responding to Nature's defense of Wikipedia, apparently rejecting Wikipedia's claim to be an encyclopedia. [34]
It is perhaps worth noting that the accuracy of the label "oldest English-language general encyclopedia" hinges on the meaning of the words "oldest" and "general". Encyclopedia Britannica is certainly not the first English-language encyclopedia (cf. List of historical encyclopedias); though it may be considered the one with the greatest longevity, as many of the earlier English-language encyclopedias are no longer published.
The Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD Rom states "At 26.22 miles (42,186 metres) the marathon is the longest race of the track meet". This is incorrect as no marathon is ever competed on the track. Wikipedia does not contain this error.
Just to clarify, the marathon article of Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD-Rom does not have the sentence. However, the athletics article does. "At 26.22 miles (42,186 metres) the marathon is the longest race of the track meet."
This page catalogs some mistakes and omissions in Encyclopædia Britannica (EB) and shows how they have been corrected in Wikipedia. Some errors have already been corrected in Britannica's online version.
These examples can serve as useful reminders of the fact that no encyclopedia can ever expect to be perfectly error-free (which is sometimes forgotten, [1] even by Britannica representatives, [2] especially when Wikipedia is compared to traditional encyclopedias), and as an illustration of the advantages of an editorial process where anybody can correct an error at any time. However, this page is not intended to be a comparison of the overall quality of both encyclopedias, nor as a dismissal of concerns about the reliability of Wikipedia.
Entries should contain a precise citation of the Britannica article in question, which includes its title and
and a wikilink to the Wikipedia article; preferably also a reference to reliable sources for the corrected fact. Corrections in newer editions of Britannica should be noted, too (with a citation in the same way).
Ben Turpin's birthdate is 19 September, 1869 but other years were used at various times in his Hollywood publicity material. In the 1900 US Census he used the year "1869", and his death certificate lists his birthday as "19 September, 1869". Encyclopædia Britannica wrongly lists the year of his birth as "1874". The New York Times obituary mentions the alternative years as fabrications. The Internet Movie Database lists his birthday properly as "19 September, 1869".
For Buster Crabbe there is a conflict between the birthdate given in his official documents, and the one used in his Hollywood publicity biographies. His birth certificate and his Social Security application both use the birthdate of " 7 February, 1908" and that will be used here. The Encyclopædia Britannica and the Internet Movie Database both use an incorrect birthdate based on his Hollywood publicity biography.
Research deemed recent at the beginning of 2004 has uncovered that Abraham Bosse was born around 1604, not 1602, as previously thought. As of May 2005, Encyclopædia Britannica still gives 1601 as his birth year.
It is a basic fact of Russian history that the tsarist administration never allowed the poet Alexander Pushkin to go abroad, a nuisance that he deplored in Eugene Onegin and other verses. Therefore, Britannica's assertion that "frequent guests" of Karlovy Vary included Alexander Pushkin and Tsar Peter I the Great is untrue. -- Ghirlandajo 10:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
In its brief entry on sociologist Manuel Castells EB claims that he is an American. Wikipedia notes that he was born in Spain, and has lived in France and the US. (At least one Wikipedia contributor submitted this as an error of fact to EB but it is uncertain whether EB has, in fact, made the appropriate change.)
Britannica's Nanking History article states:
Sun Jian never settled in Nanking; he was the governor of Changsha while a Chinese warlord and killed by Liu Biao's army while governor. It was Sun Quan who moved the capital of his state to Chien-yeh in 212, following the advice of a dying Zhang Hong. There was no Wu state at the time, as Sun Quan had not yet crowned himself emperor.
By the way, Wikipedia uses Pinyin, while Britannica still uses Wade–Giles. Here is the transliteration of the Wade–Giles in this Britannica article to Pinyin:
Chien-yeh - Jianye Sun Chien - Sun Jian (156-192) Sun Ch'uan - Sun Quan (182-252)
Britannica 2001 DVD I checked stated that 'Polish casualties are not known'. In fact, Polish casualties are known since 1950s. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
EB wrongly credits King Camp Gillette with the invention of the safety razor. The safety razor was invented in the mid 1870s by the Kampfe brothers long before Gillette's first razor, which was patented in 1904. Gillette only made some changes so that the razor could be made more cheaply and the blades were disposable.
According to EB's entry on Henry VIII, he resolved to appeal to the Pope that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been against divine law under "the biblical injunction (Lev.) forbidding marriage with a brother's widow". The entries in Leviticus both forbid a man sexual relations (18 v.v. 16) and give the promise of a childless marriage (20 v.v. 21) with his brother's wife. The inclusion or exclusion of a brother's widow in any interpretation depends on the view of the reader and would, arguably, be not one commonly held. Under Ecclesiastical law at the time of Henry, a man could in fact marry his brother's widow if the marriage was not consummated. In reality, Henry unsuccessfully lobbied the Pope for an annulment of the marriage claiming that Catherine had lied when she said she hadn't consummated her marriage with Arthur. Dainamo
Irrespective of what interpretation Henry used, the EB does not state it as "interpretation" but refers specifically to the injunction of Leviticus 18:16 forbidding marriage with a brother's widow. In other words, if this interpretation was used by Henry as stated then EB is in error by referring to it as fact when the passage unambiguously refers to a Brother's wife. The different treatment of a widow in Judaic law based on Deut 25:5 can arguably be used to enforce this point. Dainamo 18:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
According to Britannica [6], Romanian revolutionary leader Tudor Vladimirescu was assassinated on 7 June instead of 27 May, 1821, the real date.
Britannica lists the birthname of William J. Clinton ( Bill Clinton) as "William Jefferson Blythe IV" [7]. It has been confirmed by the Clinton Library [8] that the correct birthname is "William Jefferson Blythe III". Refer to respective Talk thread.
According to Britannica Sheila Scott was born on 27 April, 1927. The Oxford DNB, based on her birth certificate, confirms her birth date was actually 27 April, 1922.
Many Scottish peers are referred to in the style of John Carter, 6th Viscount of Mars, rather than the usual John Carter, 6th Viscount Mars. As Mackensen put it, almost all Scottish viscountcies use the preposition "of". No other viscountcies do this. Britannica refers to, for instance, William Gordon, 6th Viscount Kenmure instead of William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure. grendel| khan 20:44, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
The American National Biography, Washington Post, and Guardian confirm his birth date was 15 September, 1913 not "Sept. 5, 1913", the date given by Britannica. lots of issues | leave me a message 22:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
Changed to "born Sept. 15, 1913" in the current online edition. NB: This US DOJ page (which cites Attorneys General of the United States, 1789-1985, U.S. Department of Justice, 1985) gives the September 5, 1913 date too. Regards, HaeB ( talk) 19:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Recent research has established that Josquin Desprez was born between 1450 and 1455, and first went to Italy in the 1480s, NOT in 1459 as Britannica has it. The confusion arose because a singer with a similar name was part of the Sforza chapel in Milan from 1459 to 1472; this is now known to be a different person. The New Grove online also has it right ( [9]). Josquin was in France the whole time, and Britannica is writing about a completely different person. Antandrus (talk) 03:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
The short online version is very different from the similarly short version on the CD, but both are extremely inaccurate. In fact, almost every statement in the online version is incorrect:
According to
Roger Waters was born on Sept. 6, 1944. According to this Pink Floyd FAQ this is an error, and the correct birth date is September 6, 1943, as confirmed by Mark Fenwick, Roger Waters' manager. That is the date found in the Wikipedia article Roger Waters. regards, High on a tree 01:52, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
According to Encyclopædia Britannica [11] it is 21 December ( 9 Dec OS), 1879; but this date was made up by Stalin later in his life. The actual date and the one in the Wikipedia article is 18 December ( 6 Dec OS), 1878.
Britannica article on Kostroma says that "the city's cathedral, dating from 1239 and rebuilt in 1773, is situated in the kremlin (fortress) and is a fine example of old Russian architecture". Actually, the Dormition cathedral, first mentioned in the 16th century, was destroyed by the Bolsheviks on June 8, 1934. They cited the ugliness of this Neoclassical structure as a pretext for its demolition, so the cathedral could hardly be described as "a fine example of old Russian architecture". -- Ghirlandajo 10:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Britannica article on Dolgoruky Family alleges that its origins "are believed by some to go back to Yury Dolgoruky". This is a typical example of pseudo-science. Every genealogical account of the family, starting with the 16th-century Royal Genealogical Book and the 17th-century Velvet Book, asserts their descent from one of medieval princes of Obolensk, whose sobriquet was Dolgoruky (or the "Long-Armed"). In fact, their original surname was "Dolgorukov-Obolensky" but they dropped the second part of this name later in history. Therefore, the family descended not from Vladimir Monomakh or his son Yury, as Britannica states, but from his cousin and woe Oleg of Chernigov. -- Ghirlandajo 10:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
According to Encyclopædia Britannica [12], he was "a last scion of the ancient Basarab dynasty". However, according to the Wikipedia article, he was not a real heir to the dynasty, but it was a fabricated lineage. bogdan 22:55, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
A knowledgeable Wikipedia contributor disputes Britannica's claim that the old Republican Party officially changed its name to Democratic-Republican Party in the year 1798. [13] The details of the dispute can be found here. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition claimed that the name was officially changed in 1801. [14] This is also disputed. In fact, the claim of any official name change prior to the break-up of the party is disputed.
Ignaz Semmelweis reduced the mortality rate from puerperal fever an order of magnitude, by implementing chlorine handwash for doctors. His findings were reported in the Viennese Medical Weekly ( Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift. The editor remarked sarcastically that it was time people stopped being misled about the theory of chlorine washings.
A popular translation into English is "it was time to stop the nonsense of hand washing with chlorine", it probably originates from Encyclopædia Britannica (e.g. the Semmelweis entry of Encyclopædia Britannica 2004 ed. (CD version)). There is little support for the nonsense translation however. The page in question (page 536 of the Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift 6, 1856) is accessible on the Internet (access 11 May 2008). Actual quote is "'Wir glaubten diese Chlorwaschungs-Theorie habe sich längst überlebt; die Erfahrungen und statistischen Ausweise der meisten geburtshilflichen Anstalten protestiren (sic) gegen obige Anschauung; es wäre an der Zeit sich von dieser Theorie nicht weiter irreführen zu lassen. D. Red." [D. Red. = Die Redaktion]. Irreführen means to misguide, deceive or mislead - there is really no support for the nonsense English translation. Power.corrupts ( talk) 12:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
"Red Army Faction (RAF)." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 30 Nov. 2009 < http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/494068/Red-Army-Faction>.
This article about the most well-known German postwar terrorist group contains several factual errors:
As a minor concern, "formed in 1968" is a bit misleading - while it is true that some of the core members met in 1968, 1970 is generally given as the year that the group actually formed. For example, in this chronology on the web site of the BPB (the German government agency for historical education), Professor Christopher Daase states that the beginning of the Rote Armee Fraktion is either dated to Baader's escape in May 1970 or the return of him and his liberators from Jordan in August 1970.
Britannica article: [15]. Contains errors including: Garret Hobart was admitted to the bar in 1866, not 1869. He served two one-year terms in the State Assembly, not one two year terms. He left the State Senate in 1883, not 1882.
There is a widely held misconception that the Slovene-American author Louis Adamic was born on 21 or 23 March 1899, such dates are also engraved on Adamic's gravestone and included in his biography in the Britannica. However, sources from his homeland clarify that he was actually born on 23 March 1898; the wrong date was written in Adamic's certificate of origin by the mayor in Grosuplje in 1913, in order to enable Adamic to emigrate; as a 15-year old he wouldn't be permitted to do so because he was to be conscripted.
Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD-ROM "The naval bombardment began on February 16 but was halted by bad weather and not resumed until February 25." Wikipedia's Gallipoli Campaign article states that the first attack started on 19 February. So does the History Learning Site.
The 2004 Britannica CD says Bates introduced Wallace to etymology. Britannica has since corrected etymology to entomology.
In its article on Western Philosophy > Hellenistic and Roman philosophy > Stoicism, the Encyclopedia Britannica says “The Stoic system was created by a Syrian, Zeno of Citium (c. 335–c. 263 BC), who went to Athens as a merchant but lost his fortune at sea.” Zeno of Citium, however, was not Syrian. He was from the city of Citium, Cyprus, which at that time was ruled by Ptolemaic Egypt, whereas Syria was ruled by the Seleucid Empire. Our two surviving ancient biographies of Zeno, Diogenes Laertius’Lives of the Eminent Philosophers and the Suda identify him as ethnically Phoenician. Further, the ancient biographies not only do not say that Zeno lost his fortune at sea (referring to the shipwreck that caused him to stay in Athens and take up philosophy), the biography preserved by Diogenes Laertius says he had a fortune of over a thousand talents when he took up residence in Athens.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Western-philosophy/Hellenistic-and-Roman-philosophy#ref8582 accessed 5 December 2020
The online edition of Britannica says in its entry on St. Louis that "the city’s boundaries have remained unchanged since 1876, when it became administratively independent." [16] (accessed April 8, 2021) While the vote on administrative independence occurred on August 28, 1876, independence from the county did not officially happen until March of 1877, with a recount of the votes taking place in between.
EB's article on spiral suffers from severe problems in the layout of mathematical formula, at least in the online version. The formula for the logarithmic spiral is given as exp θ cot φ, which should be exp(θ cot φ). See logarithmic spiral.
In "NP-complete problem" you can find the statement
The insert "(if one exists)" makes clear that the author does not understand that only decision problems belong to the class NP. Every instance of every problem in NP has a solution: it is either YES or NO. Only YES answers need to be verified quickly. See Complexity classes P and NP.
The EB entry on Henri Poincaré gives the following description of the Poincaré conjecture: "Poincaré asked if a three-dimensional manifold in which every curve can be shrunk to a point is topologically equivalent to a three-dimensional sphere (a solid ball). This problem (now known as the Poincaré conjecture)..."
It would seem that EB is equating a 3-sphere with a solid ball, which is completely wrong. The actual entry on the conjecture is part of the topology entry and is correct. Not a surprise really, since the topology entry was written by RH Bing.
Wikipedia's entries on Poincaré and his conjecture make no such mistake, or any mathematical mistakes, for that matter (as of now).
In the article about "real number", it is claimed that
This is incorrect, since it doesn't take the empty set into account, which has an upper bound but not a smallest upper bound.
This is not correct. In integration and measure theory, the real numbers are sometimes extended by adding two symbols, +∞ and -∞, neither of which is a transfinite number. A transfinite number is either a cardinal number of an infinite set, or an ordinal number of an infinite well-ordered set. See real number and extended real number line.
The entry about "transfinite number" in EB claims that aleph-one is the cardinality of the real numbers. This is in fact neither provable nor disprovable in the currently accepted formalization of set theory; see cardinality and continuum hypothesis for the full story.
[ [18]]
The continuum hypothesis asserts that aleph_1==c, where c is the cardinality of the "large" infinite set of real numbers (called the continuum in set theory). However, the truth of the continuum hypothesis depends on the version of set theory you are using and so is undecidable.
Would Wikipedia also like to claim that it has found an error on MathWorld? 67.188.118.64 22:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The entry in EB is titled The Ferrer diagram. Of course, this notion is named after Norman Ferrers and is corrected in this subsection.
Encyclopædia Britannica states in its article about Carl Friedrich Gauss following ( [19]): Gauss’s first significant discovery, in 1792, was that a regular polygon of 17 sides can be constructed by ruler and compass alone. In fact, he made this discovery in 1796, four years later than EB claims. -- QWerk ( talk) 19:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
According to mathematician J. F. Queiró from the University of Coimbra, [20] [21] he notified Britannica in 2002 about "serious mistakes of fact in two articles where the Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunes is mentioned", namely the entries "loxodrome" and "analytic geometry - curves of double curvature" in the online and DVD versions, also in "loxodrome" in the 1994-2000 electronic version (CD-ROM):
Queiró states:
Both errors still persist in
Rhumb line and Pedro Nunes do not contain these errors.
Regards, HaeB ( talk) 01:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
EB states http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1772809/Sathya-Sai-Baba, retrieved 22 June 2013
The correct information with reputable references in the Wikipedia article Satya Sai Baba movement states, retrieved 22 June 2013
References
Andries ( talk) 23:53, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
EB claims in its article on steam power that Sadi Carnot gave the formula for the efficiency of a steam engine as (T1-T2)/T1, where T1 (T2) is the absolute temperature of the hot (cold) reservoir. Carnot actually did not give this formula. He rather stated that the efficiency is some function of the two temperatures, independent of the working fluid. The concept of absolute temperature was unknown to him, so he was not able to put the formula into the form accredited to him.
EB states that Crookes Radiometer rotates the direction it does because of pressure differences. This may not be accurate. It rotates due to the effect of the gas molecules on the edges of the vanes. Some argue that the Einstein effect acting on the edges of the vanes is a pressure difference, just as the Reynolds effect of thermal transpiration is also a pressure difference.
This topic open for debate, which is what the Wikipedia article states. EB simply states the one characterization as fact.
EB claims in its leap year article that years divisible by 4000 may be non-leap years. This is in fact not an official rule and would not increase the calendar's accuracy. See leap year.
We are correcting for an error in syncronization between the day and the year. ( orbit vs rotation ).
If this explanation is lacking in any way, please feel free to leave feedback on my talk page as to how the explanation can be made simpler and clearer. I have been interested in this idea for decades, and did the math as far back as 4th grade. Artoftransformation 22:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
In its article on fish, EB claims
This was the view of Charles Darwin; nowadays it is generally accepted that primitive lungs came first and swim bladders evolved from them. See e.g. [22], [23].
I think your assumption "that it is generally accepted" is false. Richard Dawkins agrees with Darwin on this. I would suggest it is still open to debate.
In The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins' newest book, he says that swim bladders evolved from primitive lungs.
If both sides in this debate can adduce evidence to support their assertions, I would suggest that both are correct. Both forms of evolutionary development could easily have happened separately.
anyway it's wrong to mention only one of them. with no hint to a discussion in progress. ergo - eb is wrong and this article at wiki is right :-)
Under "refractive index" in EB, the definition of the refractive index does not clarify the crucial distinction between phase velocity and signal velocity; it is stated that the velocity of x-rays in glass is higher than the velocity of x-rays in a vacuum. This is true for the phase velocity, but the speed with which information can be transmitted is not higher in glass than in a vacuum.
I agree that that is pretty serious if correctly represented -- AndrewCates 15:23, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
In the entry on "Semen", EB writes:
In fact, the vas deferens propels sperm directly from the epididymis to the outside during ejaculation. Sperm is stored before the ejaculation in the epididymis, not in the ampulla. They describe it correctly in their article on "Ejaculation". See also Ejaculation and vas deferens.
The article on "Electric charge" claims that 1 Coulomb equals 3 billion statcoulombs. This is incorrect.
Ok, so the exact number is 2,997,961,386.257345. Perhaps they should have added roughly 3,000,000,000 esu. --Cantus
Which could be pretty serious if you were relying on it! --Soapy
Actually the original quote does not suggest 10 significant figures since the zeros if not followed by a decimal point are not considered significant but only place holders. So the original quote only has 1 significant figure. I am pretty sure that that was not by accident. -- René Kanters
You are all incorrect. Trailing zeroes are not presumed significant figures unless there is a bar over a zero (or sometimes under it). This convention is common in chemistry, but seen in other scientific fields as well. Maybe they don't teach this in science classes anymore, but one can hardly fault EB for following it. Besides, the online concise article for "electric charge" now says "The unit of charge is the coulomb, which consists of 6.24 * 10^18 natural units of electric charge" so this whole "error" has been corrected and this listing is now irrelevant. JamieMcCarthy 13:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Apparently lots of people learnt something about significant digits in school. Apparently there are several different conventions. Apparently there is a definition that states an exact relationship between the two units, with enormous accuracy. Who is right? Nobody is. It is unprofessional of EB to mention a "close" number and ignore the (exact) definition. -- REW 24 july 2007 9:43 CEST.
The article technetium (April 28, 2018) claims that TcCl6 is an instance of technetium compound (in an oxidation state +6). However, the existence of technetium hexachloride was never confirmed. Lotus 50 ( talk) 18:17, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
EB has two articles about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: one about the principle itself and another one inside the quantum mechanics treatment. Unfortunately, the two articles give different formulas: one uses h/2π and the other h/4π. Furthermore, they never make clear what exactly is meant by "uncertainty".
In the article Organic Compounds/Alcohols/Ethanol, EB claims that yeast secrete an enzyme called "zymase" to convert sugar into alcohol. In fact there is no such secreted enzyme; the conversion is much more complicated and takes place within the yeast cell. See alcohol dehydrogenase.
In their article on cryptology, Britannica credits US inventor Edward Hebern for the rotor machine (a type of cipher machine of which the German Enigma machine is the most famous example). Research published in January 2003 revealed that the machine had been invented earlier by Dutch engineers Van Hengel and Spengler. This has been reflected in the Wikipedia article on rotor machines since September 2004; the EB is still out of date. — Matt Crypto 19:13, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
From the Nitroglycerin talk page:
In the article water, Britannica Online says water is a "colourless, tasteless, and odourless liquid at room temperature". No mention is made of the fact that actually water has an intrisic color.
In the article 'Dogon language' the EB recites the popular belief that Dogon, the language spoken by the Dogon peoples, is one language (acknowledging that 'six dialects of Dogon have been identified'). However, starting with Bertho (1953) it has been established that Dogon is in fact a family with a high internal diversity and that the varieties are not merely dialects of one monolithic language. In the most recent published survey, Hochstetler (2004) distinguishes at least seventeen distinct speech varieties, noting that many of these are not mutually intelligible. The Wikipedia article Dogon languages has all the details.
Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/707370/Dogon-language
In the article 'Nigeria', section 'Linguistic composition' the EB (2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD) claims that the Nigerian languages Yoruba and Igbo, among others, are Kwa languages. It is true that Joseph Greenberg classified them as such in his 1966 The Languages of Africa, but since Bennett & Sterk 1977 it is widely accepted that the Yoruboid and Igboid languages are in fact members of the Benue-Congo family, as acknowledged in the Wikipedia article Kwa languages. Strangely enough, EB's article on the Kwa languages has it right; it seems that they have updated the main article, but have forgotten to update other ones affected by advancing insights.
Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/414840/Nigeria
In its article "Kwa languages", EB2005 claims that "..of these languages [i.e. the Left bank Kwa languages] the Gbe cluster (better known as Ewe) is by far the largest with some two million speakers."
This statement is erroneous and misleading because it first equates Ewe to Gbe and then takes into account only the speakers of Ewe, the largest of the Gbe languages. According to recent statistics (Ethologue 15th edition, Kluge 2002), Ewe has about three million speakers and other Gbe languages like Fon and Aja account for at least another 1,5 million each. EB2005 furthermore fails to mention that Ewe as a term for the Gbe cluster as a whole has fallen out of use at least since 1980 (Capo 1988, 1991, Kluge 2002, Ameka 2001). To add to the confusion, EB2005 claims in its article 'Fon' that Fon is a dialect of Ewe and that "the Fon numbered some 3,010,000 in the late 20th century"
The entry (I saw it in 2000 or 2001 editions, needs to be checked):
I couldn't understand the purpose of this word "Beloruska" implanted into the English-language text until I looked up the entries for other languages. In the article on Bulgarian language it said "bulgarski ezik," so I figured here we should have the name of our own language in our own tongue. This should then have read "bielaruskaja mova". To the best of my knowledge, "Beloruska" is the adjective "Belarusian" in Bulgarian and some other Slavic languages.
More mistakes or misconceptions in this short but error-ridden entry
This should then have read "bielaruskaja mova". That statement is wrong. Spelling is always a problem, but Beloruska is much closer to reality than "bielaruskaja"
In its article "Kalenjin", EB2005 defines Kalenjin as follows: "any member of the Nandi, Kipsikis, Pokot, Tatoga, and other related peoples of west-central Kenya, northern Tanzania, and Uganda who speak Nilotic languages of the Nilo-Saharan language family".
First, a glaring error: the Tatoga (Datoga) are not Kalenjin, but form together with the Omotik a separate branch of the Southern Nilotes called Omotik-Datoga (cf. Rottland 1982, Ethnologue 15th edition). This is outlined in the Wikipedia articles Kalenjin languages and Southern Nilotic languages.
Second, this entry could be interpreted as suggesting that the Maasai and the Luo, also speakers of Nilotic languages and certainly historically and genetically related to the peoples mentioned, are Kalenjin peoples as well. In fact, Maasai and Luo are Eastern Nilotic and Western Nilotic languages, respectively, whereas the Kalenjin languages are Southern Nilotic languages; EB2005 fails to make this important distinction.
Third, EB fails to make clear that there are two crucially different uses of the term Kalenjin and indiscriminately uses 'Kalenjin' in wholly different contexts. In its article 'Eastern Africa', subsection 'Identifying and classifying peoples', it observes that "the Kalenjin of western Kenya have come into being since 1960 by a conscious fusing together of older and smaller peoples". 'Kalenjin' in this context is the name various Nandi-speaking peoples adopted in the late 1940's/early 1950's when they united to form a larger ethnical and political entity (cf. Kalenjin and references cited therein). This use is different from the term 'Kalenjin' in the linguistic sense as outlined in the Wikipedia articles Kalenjin languages and Kalenjin language.
In the article 'Niger-Congo languages', section 'Early records', the EB (2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD) tells us that The first extant book written in an African language was published in 1624 (...) It consists of a catechism in Portuguese with an interlinear translation into Kongo. It probably should have read "the first extant book written in a sub-Saharan African, or more specifically, in a Niger-Congo language", because literature has been produced in some African languages long before this; see for example Old Nubian language, Coptic language and others.
In the entry for 'wrench' [26] Britannica states: 'On one type the jaws are at right angles to the handle; this wrench, invented by Charles Moncky, is known as a monkey wrench.' They do not state (and perhaps they should) when he invented it but if it's taken to be in 1858, the OED has an entry thus: '?1807 in E. S. Dane Peter Stubs & Lancashire Hand Tool Industry (1973) 219 Fleetwood, Richard..Parr, Rainford. Screw plates, lathes, clock engines..monkey wrenches, taps.' It would appear that the phrase was already in useage prior to 1858.
Matsu is
However, EB chose to give only an article on the first (single island), thereby misguiding the reader into thinking that Matsu of the Republic of China is one island (Nankan). (See Matsu Island)
However, the country controls the entire mini-archipelago of the Matsu Islands as a county (called Lienchiang). Although Nankan is the largest of the Matsu Islands, when referring to Matsu, one usually speaks of the entire archipelago. Metonymy, in this case, ignores other integral parts of Matsu and provides an incomplete picture of Lienchiang County.
Same problem as Matsu (see above). See also Quemoy.
EB claims that Chotyn lies in Moldova (actually it lies in Ukraine), errors in the location of Belovezhskaya Forest, and that the European bison only exists in Poland (as opposed to elsewhere in Eastern Europe). All these errors were discovered by a twelve-year-old boy. (BBC)
In 2008, Hamlet Isakhanli, scientist and poet, founder and president of Khazar University conducted a comparison of Encyclopaedia Britannica and English Wikipedia on Azerbaijan and related subjects. His study found that Wikipedia has covered the subject much wider, more accurate and detailed, even though with some disbalances, and that Wikipedia is best source for the first approximation. The confused identity of Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev in Britannica has been already corrected in its online version. [3]
EB claims that Réseau Jean Bernard is the deepest cave in the world, but this fact, although widely reported, is incorrect. There are at least three caves known to be deeper [27].
In
Britannica claims that Lafia is a town in the Plateau State of central Nigeria. Actually, it is the capital of the neighboring state Nasarawa, according to the state's home page [28].
The likely reason for this error is the fact that Nasarawa was newly formed in 1996 by dividing Plateau State - apparently the Britannica article has not been updated during the last 11 years.
10 mistakes/inaccuracies/outdated information/dubious descriptions in an article of 450 words... and no action on their behalf in the past seven months. Details here.
The modern city has a hydroelectric power plant as well as ... FALSE!
1 mistake in an article of 80 words. -- Smihael ( talk) 14:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Britannica states: "(July 15, 1410), battle fought at Tannenberg (Polish: Stębark)". In fact as our article clearly explains, Tannenberg is a German name for Grunwald and Stębark is a nearby village. There is a ton of sources referring to "Battle of Grunwald" (the Polish name of the battle is "bitwa pod Grunwaldem"), the few sources that refer to the battle of Stębark refer to the 1914 battle... -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
The article
states that "It is 865 mi (1,390 km) long". This disagrees with most reference works (such as Brockhaus) and school books in Germany, which give a length of around 1320km. But even that number is too high, as biologist Bruno Kremer found during research for a 2010 book ( ISBN 978-3874634564) - the correct length is around 1230km. The error is conjectured to have come from a simple transposition of digits, which then permeated and persisted for decades. See also Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-03-29/In the news.
The article: " [30]" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 30 Dec. 2014 states that "The summit is in French territory." However this is only the French point of view. In official Italian cartography the summit is exactly on the French-Italian border. This is correctly pointed out in the Wikipedia article " [31]" where the history of the controversy over the summit ownership is well explained. The only legally binding French-Italian treatise on the Alpine borders states that the summit is indeed right on the border; however, French maps always put the summit well within French borders.
The article: Flag of American Samoa (visited March 27, 2018) states that "The U.S. flag was officially hoisted over American Samoa on April 27, 1900", and that the American Samoan flag "became official on April 27, 1960, the day the first constitution of American Samoa went into effect and the 60th anniversary of the first hoisting of the U.S. flag in Samoa." This is incorrect. The U.S. flag was first hoisted on April 17, 1900, and the American Samoan flag was adopted 60 years to the day later. This date, April 17, is still celebrated as Flag Day in American Samoa, and is one of its biggest holidays. Chubbles ( talk) 20:09, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
EB lists social choice theory as a synonym for rational choice theory. This is not correct; the two are very different fields. Closed Limelike Curves ( talk) 00:57, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
This may be a bit nitpicky, but EB thinks there is hip hop music (which they problematically call rap) that is either not rhythmic or non-rhyming. I suppose there may be hip hop with no rhymes at all (I've never heard of it), but it's certainly always rhythmic. Also, hip hop as the backing music for rap, the musical style incorporating rhythmic and/or rhyming speech that became the movement's most lasting and influential art form is a bit odd, I think. They apparently use "hip hop" to refer to the beat/instrumentation behind the rapping, which is not normal, at least -- if "rap" is the "musical style", then the "backing music" is an integral part of it, and "rap" doesn't "incorporate" a kind of speech... it is a kind of speech, and is only a "musical style" when combined with "hip hop". Furthermore, "most lasting and influential art form" being applied to "rap" is silly -- graffiti, breakdancing and DJing have lasted just as long as rapping (early 70s to present); I suppose EB is allowed to be biased and call "rap" more influential than DJing, but I note that rapping is not widely used outside of hip hop, while DJing had a major influence on electronic music. Of course, if by "rap", they are referring to hip hop music, then that would make sense, but that would be inconsistent with the first part. So, it's at best confusingly written and misleading. Tuf-Kat 19:19, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
It seems that hip-hop music is the hardest genre for some music scholars to write about. -- FuriousFreddy 23:46, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
The above statement is somewhat confusing in and of itself. Very simply Britannica's error is that hip-hop is not simply a form of music, but a culture. It encompasses four basic elements- graffiti, breakdancing, DJing and MCing. Although, some people do incorrectly use the term "hip-hop" to describe the musical genre of rap. Rap music is the combination of two elements of hip-hop culture (the DJ and the MC) but it is NOT synonymous with hip-hop. It is impossible to have rap music without a DJ and an MC. However an art form known as "spoken word" consists of a person rythmically reciting poetry. Some may consider this person an "MC" without a DJ.
Cadentsoul
00:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Here's the full text of the first paragraph of the Britannica article: cultural movement that attained widespread popularity in the 1980s and '90s; also, the backing music for rap, the musical style incorporating rhythmic and/or rhyming speech that became the movement's most lasting and influential art form. I agree that the author was probably going for what Cadentsoul explained, but there are at least 5 errors in this one sentence:
Tuf-Kat ( talk) 08:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Concise EB sees fenghuang as female ( EB article). But the accurate (as defined in all non-children Chinese dictionaries) and still popular Chinese mythology says that fenghuang is a species with both males and females. In fact, "full" EB http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9033972 says "Like the qilin (a unicorn-like creature), the fenghuang is often considered to signify both male and female elements [...]".
According to a long-time Wikipedian (in a post on Slashdot), Britannica states (see also the title of the article Zappa, Francis Vincent) that Frank Zappa was originally named "Francis", while the Wikipedia article is consistent with Zappa's autobiography in stating that he was christened "Frank" and was never named "Francis".
In its article "Qala'un Mosque", EB2005 claims that the Mosque is a "building complex, including a mausoleum, a madrasah, and a hospital, built in 1283-85 on the site of present-day Cairo by the fifth Mamluk sultan."
There is, indeed, a building complex in Cairo that was built in 1283-85 by the fifth Mamluk sultan, and this complex includes a mausoleum, a madrasah and a hospital. However, this complex is not the Qala'un Mosque; usually, it is called the Qala'un Complex. The Qala'un Mosque itself, more exactly termed the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qala'un Mosque is generally not considered part of the complex (though it is adjacent to it), and it was built about forty years later (in 1318) by the Mamluk sultan Al-Nasr Muhammad, son of Qalawun referred to as 'the fifth Mamluk sultan' by EB2005. This EB2005 article therefore is a dangerous misnomer at best. The EB article proceeds to talk about the madrasah and mausoleum of the older Qala'un Complex and fails to even mention anything about the history or the architecture of the (very notable) Mosque itself.
Just one correction, the Qala'un Mosque mentioned in Wikipedia, which is officially termed the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qala'un Mosque, is not the one adjacent to the Qala'un Complex. In fact, the Qala'un Mosque (Mosque of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad) is located in the Cairo Citadel, and the Qala'un Complex is close to Khan el-Khalili within the city. But there is one more mosque of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, officially termed the Madrasah and Tomb of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, which is adjacent to the Qala'un Complex. It was initiated by Kitbugha in 1295 and completed by al-Nasir Muhammad in 1304. -- Chapultepec ( talk) 01:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
In the traditional religion of the Gbe peoples, there is a creator deity called Mawu (see Ewe (people), Dahomey mythology and Mawu). EB2005, in its article 'Ewe', states that "Ewe religion is organized around a creator god, Mawa". A typo, and an unfortunate one at that — who is going to point out that this foreign language word should in fact be spelled Mawu?
EB claims that full name of Casanova is " Giovanni Giacomo Casanova", but according to his birth certificate the right name is "Giacomo Girolamo Casanova" (take a look at the transcription of the certificate, here).
The article on the US National Security Agency (NSA) in EB's online edition, December 2005, states that:
This is false. The NSA maintains an extensive website which includes an "about NSA page", numerous press releases, a section on declassification initiatives, a kid's zone, etc. Moreover, the "NSA press room" page states that, "The NSA/CSS Public and Media Affairs Office fosters relationships with media outlets throughout the world, responding to thousands of requests each year for information about NSA/CSS and its missions, interviews with leadership or experts, and filming opportunities."
The NSA has communicated with the public or press in the past as well. Bobby Ray Inman, the NSA director in the late 1970s, provided information to the press (as long as it was in NSA's interests), even appearing on TV (ABC Nightline). — Matt Crypto 13:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
EB states that, "although some of the structures were built in the 20th century, most date to the 17th and 18th centuries". This is not true. There isn't one surviving 17th century building in the square (though it was originally developed in the 17th century); well under half are 18th century (only 4-5, 9-13, 15, 20, 31A and 33) ; and there are a good number which date to the 19th century, which EB omits to mention altogether. Wikipedia has complete information based on the authoritative Survey of London, confirmed by personal observation and updated for recent reconstructions (none of which involved magically reappearing a 17th century building). Hawkestone 21:58, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The Britannica article is a catalogue of errors and omissions. It doesn't mention that his tally of PGA Tour wins was revised from 61 to 62 when British Open victories before 1995 were retrospectively designated as PGA Tour wins in 2002. It doesn't mention that from 1968 the PGA Tour was independent of the Professional Golfers' Association of America, meaning that it is incorrect about the sanctioning body for all his PGA Tour wins after that date (indeed it doesn't mention the PGA Tour at all). The statement that he was the leading figure in world golf through to the mid 1960s is incomplete at best (see Jack Nicklaus). There is no such event as the "PGA Senior Open"; in 1981 he won the United States Senior Open, which is organised by the USGA not the PGA. He did however win the Senior PGA Championship in 1980 and 1984, as well as two other senior majors which EB doesn't mention at all.
As well as getting its facts wrong, EB omits all the broader reasons why Palmer is important in the history of golf: his charismatic prominence in the early TV era; his rivalry with Nicklaus; his popularisation of the British Open in the U.S; his status as the first client of the key figure in the history of sports marketing ( Mark McCormack). Hawkestone 22:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
In 2006, the online edition of EB lists French and English as official languages. However this has never been the case. English was added as an official language in a proposal by Laurent Desiré Kabila, but that proposed constitution never got promulgated. The newest constitution still specifies French is the only official language, along with 4 national languages.
-- moyogo 09:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Update: EB has updated this webpage accordingly.
Three errors have been identified over the years; all of them have been corrected. They were:
Britannica 2004 CD dates it to 1923 in the article on "Paramount Pictures Corporation", but correctly dates it to 1956 in the "Motion Picture" article. He made two movies, one in each of the noted years.
Britannica wrongly states "The element was named after the United States of America." while others falsely state North America.
[4]
[5]
The name was actually chosen from listener suggestions from Adventures of Science. "Europium, was named after Europe, it made perfect sense to Seaborg that element 95 be named
americium."
[6]
One statement that has been sometimes called an error is Britannica's statement in the article "Encyclopædia Britannica" that it is the "oldest and largest English-language general encyclopedia." If Wikipedia's claim to be an encyclopedia is accepted, then this statement is erroneous because Wikipedia contains more words and articles than Britannica. (Source: Wikipedia article " Wikipedia") Although Britannica has at times referred to Wikipedia as an encyclopedia [33], it has also referred to Wikipedia as "the Internet database that allows anyone... to edit" when responding to Nature's defense of Wikipedia, apparently rejecting Wikipedia's claim to be an encyclopedia. [34]
It is perhaps worth noting that the accuracy of the label "oldest English-language general encyclopedia" hinges on the meaning of the words "oldest" and "general". Encyclopedia Britannica is certainly not the first English-language encyclopedia (cf. List of historical encyclopedias); though it may be considered the one with the greatest longevity, as many of the earlier English-language encyclopedias are no longer published.
The Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD Rom states "At 26.22 miles (42,186 metres) the marathon is the longest race of the track meet". This is incorrect as no marathon is ever competed on the track. Wikipedia does not contain this error.
Just to clarify, the marathon article of Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD-Rom does not have the sentence. However, the athletics article does. "At 26.22 miles (42,186 metres) the marathon is the longest race of the track meet."