What is it? "The Precambrian is a dimensionless unit of time, which embraces all the time between the origin of Earth and the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time," explains a letter the Smithsonian wrote to Kenton acknowledging he was right. The Tower of Time exhibit has been open since the museum opened in 1981, and millions of people have seen it--but no one ever reported the mistake. He said he learned about the Precambrian from his fifth grade earth science teacher, John Chapman, at Alamo Elementary school near Kalamzoo. Kenton said Mr. Chapman almost made the same mistake--that is, calling the Precambrian the Precambrian Era--but caught himself before he said it. "I knew Mr. Chapman wouldn't tell all these students" bad information, Kenton told the Kalamazoo Gazette.
So Kenton's dad, Kevin Stufflebeam, took his son to the museum's information desk where Kenton reported the error on a comment form. And the museum took notice, sending him a letter acknowledging his observation was "spot on," reports AP. The solution? A bucket of paint--to cover up the word "era." In all fairness, the error has long rankled the paleobiology department's staff, which noticed it before the Tower of Time exhibit ever opened to the public. No one knows why it was put up there in the first place.
Still, the good people at the Smithsonian may have a real problem with typos. Instead of correctly addressing the letter to Kenton Stufflebeam of Allegan, the letter was addressed to Kenton Slufflebeam of Allegany.
