Oh Well, Did You Think He Was Perfect?

In a recent column on a trillion , I sought to correct a couple of errors made in a previous column on a trillion. I quoted some advice from Roy Brady of Northridge:

“Most people should leave things mathematical alone, even the most elementary.”

Would that I had.

Brady also quoted the English lyric poet, A. E. Housman, from an article on textual criticism: “The less you say about that which you do not understand, the less you will say that is foolish.”

The wisdom of those two aphorisms is proved by the errors I went on to make in that same column.

First, although Brady had spelled it correctly, I misspelled Housman as Houseman . Second, I gave credit for sending me the quotation not to Brady but to another reader, Laurence McGilvery of La Jolla.

Now Brady writes: “You attribute the Houseman quote to Laurence McGilvery.” Citing an obscure source, he adds: “Perhaps he ran across it also, but that is a little unlikely.” (But notice that Brady is now spelling it Houseman himself.)

Now McGilvery writes: “It was not I who quoted Housman.” (Please note that A.E. and Laurence both eschew the e , though John does not.)

McGilvery had written to correct an assumption quoted from a previous letter by George H. Matter of Fullerton, that the dimension of the known universe was 200 million light-years.

I quoted McGilvery as pointing out that 200 million light-years was “too small by a factor of something over 50,” and I noted that Isaac Azimov had estimated its size at 10 billion light-years, at least. (A post card reminds me that Azimov is spelled Asimov.)

Now George H. Matter writes in “profound embarrassment” over his gross misestimate of the universe, but he points out that in attempting to quote his error I wrote “200 million miles ,” not light-years , which, he points out, is “nearly 6 trillion times smaller than the value of 200 million light-years, which I used.”

Matter graciously does not rebuke me except to repeat Brady’s adage: “Perhaps Brady is correct in saying that ‘most people should leave things mathematical alone.’ ”

McGilvery also complains that I eliminated the word printed from his statement that “the total of all printed U.S. currency in circulation is less than one quarter of $1 trillion” (or $250 billion). “If coins, which are also currency, are included,” he says, “the total is well over $250 billion.”

McGilvery also indirectly chides me for pointing out Matter’s error, saying: “I would not have thrust that bald criticism at Mr. Matter. As long as one’s ignorance hurts no one else, it is far better to risk being foolish once and learn from the mistake than it is never to take a chance at all.”

To Brady’s aphorism, and to Housman’s, I now add the more forgiving one of McGilvery, and apologize to Matter for compounding his embarrassment and his mistake.

By the way, in his first letter McGilvery made some calculations that I did not quote, out of modesty, but now, in consequence of my errors, they seem more pertinent.

He points out that The Times circulation on the day that column appeared was 1,136,813 copies (and 1,421,711 on Sunday). Figuring the column at 722 words, he says “the printed total of your words for that single Wednesday is 820,778,986.”

Figuring that I write 200 columns a year, and longer ones on Sunday, “the result is over 200 billion of Jack Smith’s words every year. If you can’t wait five years to rack up a trillion, just convert your words into characters, and the yearly total becomes the magic T.”

Actually, allowing seven weeks off for illness and vacation, I write five columns a week 45 weeks a year; each column is about 735 words. On my calculator, that adds up to only 165,375 words a year--about the size of two novels.

Though I am unable to verify his calculations, I am assuming that McGilvery is right on the total of printed words. By his way of looking at it, every error I make becomes 1,136,813 errors (on weekdays).

Backward reels the mind.

I have already blown my quota of two errors per year, on that one column alone. I am going to reset the clock, as they say in basketball, and start from scratch.