Most of these are continuity errors: Writers Cannot Do Math

Writers Cannot Do Math has a huge number of examples that really have nothing to do with math — most of them are clearly just continuity errors where the author simply forgot (or They Just Didn't Care) about the dates involved.

Should this be fixed?

Sure. Just zap 'em.

Can we zap all of 'em?

edited 22nd Feb '11 2:14:59 AM by SpellBlade

I don't think there's a need to remove all of them, but I would suggest a rename to broaden the trope.

edited 22nd Feb '11 2:29:45 AM by halfmillennium

A Continuity Error is a Continuity Error. Just having a wrong numerical value doesn't equal math errors. Star Trek Voyager constantly having a full compliment of shuttles despite loosing a dozen over the course of the series isn't a mathmatical error, it's just not paying attention. Giving three different ages for Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the same thing. Having Bender from Futurama be made up of a dozen different metals totaling something like 300 percent is a math error, but also Rule of Funny. Stating 1+2+3=5 is a math error. Saying someone born in 1973 is 85 years old is a math error.

Which is part of why I suggested broadening it to include errors of that type.

It should only be errors of that type. Otherwise it's just a Series Continuity Error But With Numbers.

edited 22nd Feb '11 12:14:32 PM by shimaspawn

It doesn't need to be broadened. A continuity error is a continuity error is a continuity error. They have no place in an article about math errors. Look at the chalkboard in most (non-philosophy) classes on television, and the errors are obvious.

So which is it: literally getting maths wrong (the page image), or getting the numbers relevant to the story wrong?

Getting math that is relevant to the story wrong.

So would it be(for example) if Alice is said to have a child that's 33 and she is later revealed to have been born in 1972 (since it's pretty much impossible to have a child at the age of 6). Or would that be a continuity error?

So I think that this trope should be limited to math errors that are errors from a 'single place', however we define that, and numbers that are contradicted _later_ should be under continuity errors. Or numbers that are contradicted by Word of God. (And aren't a retcon.)

For example, in Harry Potter, most of the crazy dates given for ages were Word of God, and ended up in Oot P all at once on the Black family tree. Same with the number of students...Hogwarts was always intended to have 1000 students, it was just, mathematically, that makes no sense with 40 students a year, nor does it make sense with 13 teachers.

Continuity errors are failure to remember things from release to release, not saying two contradictory things at once.

This specific trope exists because authors very very often end up saying two contradictory things at once after someone sits down and does the math. As opposed to other types of 'two competing facts in the same work' errors, which happens less.