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A comment on When pop history bombs: a response to Malcolm Gladwell. Parent comment

Re:When pop history bombs: a response to Malcolm Gladwell by tptacek on Wednesday June 16, 2021 @07:19PM (#27534599)
I guess I just wonder which is worse, misspelling "eigenvalue" in such a way that it's clear that the author is piping their source directly to the page, or spelling it correctly without understanding it, so we have to wonder how much of the mathematical validity of the source the author is vouching for.

Since I don't expect an ordinary writer to have a lot of linear algebra, it doesn't bother me much to know that they're taking their source's word for it on this stuff. But I do worry a lot about the ability for slick-talking people to persuasively name drop concepts they don't really grok.

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Re:When pop history bombs: a response to Malcolm Gladwell by kevinmchugh on Thursday June 17, 2021 @08:30AM (#27538865)
The context that gets forgotten when people bring this up is that the essay initially appeared in the New Yorker in 2002, where "eigenvalue" was spelled correctly. All the controversy about whether he understands incidental math seems to come from his book publisher having a less careful copy editor than the New Yorker.

Maybe people could blame him for allowing the error to appear in the book, 7 years after it had been corrected in the magazine. Shrug.

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