U.S.

Math error at the Museum of Science caught by 15-year-old

/ AP

BOSTON - It took a 15-year-old high school student from Virginia to catch a math error at Boston's venerable Museum of Science.

Joseph Rosenfeld was visiting the museum on a recent family trip when he saw something that appeared wrong with the equation for the Golden Ratio, part of the nearly 35-year-old "Mathematica" exhibit.

The teen noticed minus signs in the equation where there should have been plus signs. He left a message at the desk, and later received a letter from the museum's exhibit content developer, Alana Parkes, informing him the equation would be corrected.

Parkes wrote the mistake had been there for a "very long time" without being noticed.

Rosenfeld tells Boston.com that catching the error was exciting. He hopes to return to Massachusetts someday to attend MIT.

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