Buzz
Museums are treasure troves of knowledge, but every so often, a sharp-eyed child can catch them in a mistake. Here are five instances when kids and teens noticed errors in exhibits or identified something out of place.
1. THE YOUNGSTER WHO SPOTTED A MISTAKE IN THE LONDON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM'S DINO DISPLAY.
During the London Natural History Museum’s “Dino Snores for Kids”—a sleepover event for young dinosaur enthusiasts—in July 2017, 10-year-old Charlie Edwards realized that a sign in the museum's “Dinosaur Trail” fossil-hunting activity was incorrect. The sign was meant to feature an Oviraptor, a beaked carnivorous dinosaur, but Edwards noticed it actually showed a Protoceratops, a herbivorous dinosaur about the size of a sheep.
Edwards informed his parents, who were initially doubtful but decided to reach out to the museum on their son's behalf. A few weeks later, they received a letter from the Natural History Museum confirming that the boy’s observation was correct. (According to a statement from the Natural History Museum, the exhibit had been "refurbished several times" and "an error [had] been made.") Thanks to Edwards, the museum plans to fix the sign.
“I am really, really proud of him,” said Charlie’s mother, Jade. “Charlie has Asperger syndrome and tends to immerse himself in subjects he loves, learning everything he can about them. It’s wonderful that he’s been able to demonstrate his knowledge and show what he’s learned.”
2. THE YOUTH WHO HELPED FIX A MISTAKE IN THE SMITHSONIAN'S "TOWER OF TIME" EXHIBIT.
In 2008, 11-year-old Kenton Stufflebeam and his family visited the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. There, Stufflebeam noticed that the label in the museum's “Tower of Time” exhibit inaccurately referred to the Precambrian—the first super eon in Earth's history—as an era. His fifth-grade teacher had once made the same mistake before correcting it, and “I knew Mr. Chapman wouldn't tell all these students” false facts, Stufflebeam later told the Kalamazoo Gazette.
Stufflebeam reported the mistake by filling out a comment card at the museum's information desk. Months later, the Smithsonian reached out to inform him that he was “spot on”: “The Precambrian is a dimensionless unit of time, encompassing all the time from Earth’s formation to the start of the Cambrian Period,” their letter explained. As for the error, museum staff had intended to correct it—an issue that had been noticed years earlier by frustrated experts—by simply painting over the word “era.”
In early 2017, Stufflebeam—now 19 years old—made headlines once again, this time for being at the center of a bidding war for his graphic design skills. ESPN covered Kenton’s surprising rise to fame following his experience with the Smithsonian, highlighting how it demonstrated "his keen eye for detail."
3. THE TEEN WHO SPOTTED A HISTORICAL ERROR IN A RECREATION OF AL CAPONE'S PRISON CELL.
While visiting Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary in 2016, 13-year-old Joey Warchal noticed that a large cabinet radio inside the museum’s replica of Al Capone’s jail cell—where the notorious gangster stayed from 1929 to 1930—was not historically accurate. Warchal, a collector of antique radios and record players, recognized the music player as a Philco A-361, which was actually produced in 1942.
The observant teen emailed the museum’s vice president, Sean Kelley, and offered to help find a historically accurate radio. Kelley accepted the offer, giving Warchal a $400 budget to track down a replacement. To show their gratitude, officials at Eastern State Penitentiary also threw a celebration in Warchal’s honor for his dedication and hard work.
4. THE TEEN WHO SPOTTED AN ERROR IN THE MET'S MAP OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE.
In 2011, thirteen-year-old history enthusiast Benjamin Lerman Coady was visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City during his summer vacation when he spotted a flaw in a permanent exhibit about the Byzantine Empire—a topic he had recently studied. The 6th-century map, intended to show the empire at its peak, mistakenly left out Spain and parts of Africa.
A museum docent asked him to fill out a form, and in September, Coady received a letter from the Met’s senior vice president for external affairs, notifying him that his observation would be reviewed by the museum's medieval art department. As it turned out, the teen was correct: In January 2012, Byzantine art curator Helen Evans reached out to Coady, acknowledged the mistake, and invited him for a private tour. She also asked him to create his own version of the museum's Byzantine Empire map and shared that steps were being taken to correct the map.
5. THE TEEN WHO SPOTTED AN ERROR AT BOSTON'S MUSEUM OF SCIENCE.
In 2015, 15-year-old Joseph Rosenfeld from Virginia was visiting Boston’s Museum of Science when he noticed what seemed to be a mistake in the “Mathematica: A World of Numbers … and Beyond” exhibit. In an equation for the Golden Ratio, Rosenfeld observed that minus signs were used in places where there should have been plus signs.
Rosenfeld left a message at the museum’s front desk, and his family provided the museum with his contact information. Initially, Alana Parkes, the Museum of Science’s exhibit content developer, thought the exhibit had made a mistake. She sent Joseph a letter acknowledging, “You are right that the formula for the Golden Ratio is incorrect. We will be changing the – sign to a + sign in the three places it appears if we can do so without damaging the original.”
Ultimately, the Museum of Science’s “Mathematica” exhibit was technically accurate, as it had actually displayed the equation for the golden ratio’s reciprocal, also known as the golden ratio conjugate.
Eve Torrence, a math professor at Randolph-Macon College, explained to The Washington Post, “I’d call it uncommon, not the way most people think of the golden ratio today. It’s not what most people expect, but it’s not incorrect either.”
Although the issue wasn't technically an error, Torrence concluded that Rosenfeld still deserved recognition for questioning authority.
