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TYPO or other mistake ... in a ["scientific notation"?] number

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Where the mistake is

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As of the "Latest revision as of 17:58, 30 January 2026" version of this article, the "Revised Julian calendar" sub-sub-section currently says [QUOTE:]

The Revised Julian calendar, proposed in 1923 and used in some Eastern Orthodox Churches, has 218 leap years every 900 years, for the average (mean) year length of 365.242 2222 days, close to the length of the mean tropical year, 365.242 19 days (relative error of 9·10). In the year 2800 CE, the Gregorian and Revised Julian calendars will begin to differ by one calendar day.[6]

What the 'error' is

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The parenthetical expression "(relative error of 9·10)" there, seems to contain a TYPO or some other kind of mistake... such as a missing "exponent" for the number "ten" (10).

I suspected that where it has the number "10", the number that it "should" have there, was probably some [negative] power of ten that is a tiny fraction, such as "one hundred-millionth".

In a good faith effort to try to figure out what the intent was, of the previous author[s] or editor[s] who wrote or modified the parenthetical expression in that sub-sub-section, I used a calculator [app] to divide 365.2422222 by 365.24219 for starters.

The answer I got was "1.00000008816", which is very close to one. When I subtracted one [since it is mentioning "relative error"], the answer was "0.00000008816" (which was displayed as "8.816E-8", where the "E-8" means: [times] 10-8; ... as in, "hundred-millionths"!)

What it probably should say

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IMHO the slight inaccuracy of displaying the "non exponent" part of the number as "9" instead of "8.816" is so negligible that ... it is outside the scope of this "comment".

However, the non-trivial inaccuracy of displaying the "exponent" part of the number as "10" instead of, say, "10-8" or "E-8" is not so negligible. IMHO it should be corrected.

So ... in my opinion, if I were to change it now, I would probably change

  • "(relative error of 9·10)"

there, to either

  • "(relative error of 9·10-8)"

or

  • "(relative error of about 0.9 times 10-7)"

or

  • "(relative error of about 10-7)"

or

  • "(relative error of about 1 part in 11,000,000)"

instead.

The likely next step

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I was almost going to just "be bold" and change it (e.g., as suggested above), but [A] I didn't think that this [amount of] detailed explanation would fit in an "edit comment", and [B] I thought that, even though

  • [B.1] "the previous author[s] or editor[s] who wrote or modified the parenthetical expression [...]" might never read this, and/or
  • [B.2] they might have forgotten what their original "intent" was, and/or
  • [B.3] they might never reply to this,

that despite all that, it still might be a good idea to give others (such as you ...if you are reading this) a chance to comment ... in case my attempts to "figure out" what should be done were not as successful as I thought, ... in case they still have some "room for improvement".

So ... if any comments get added here -- such as, suggestions for the wording that should be used -- then I (or 'we') should probably consider those, before editing that parenthetical expression, in that sub-sub-section.

Any comments? Mike Schwartz (talk) 08:23, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well spotted. You can certainly be bold and write the edit summary as "see talk page at typo or other mistakes". Your analysis is convincing. I suggest that "one part in about eleven million" is appropriate for the lay readership who may have forgotten exponentiation from school. Preferably with a footnote (using {{efn}}) that gives the more precise figure and how it was derived. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:58, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
UPDATE! ... the (negative) "exponent" used to be there ... but it got deleted.
Btw, (to: 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk)) This was written before I saw your reply (above).
I think I found out when this got changed: it seems that it was on 10-May-2023 at 10:04 :
This DIFF listing -- ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Year&diff=next&oldid=1149677204 )-- may or may not strike you as (perhaps) a good source of "ideas" for other deletions or ... changes which might be 'candidates' for -- "maybe" -- being 'reinstated'.
For EXAMPLE:
Another exponent, using the "superscript" markers "<sup>" and "</sup>").
In some cases, I will probably leave that "opportunity" (to search through this DIFF listing to find changes that 'might' be good candidates for being "re-considered") ... up to others.
However, if that other "exponent" that got deleted (it was a negative 7 ... instead of a negative 8) (and in both cases, the 'base' was ten) seems -- to me -- to belong in this article, then I might take it upon myself to reinstate "both" exponents that got deleted during that edit. (Never mind whether the deletion was 'intentional' or not ... at least in the case of the "negative 8" which I found -- and discussed [see above] -- IMHO the deletion was a bad idea.)
Perhaps we could call it 'presumably' unintentional ... ['inadvertent'? perhaps] ... /slash 'non-malicious' ... activity that still could have some consequences that are kinda similar to ... actual 'vandalism'.)
Different persons may have different opinions about ... whether or not it is "fun" to (umm ...) "clean up" mistakes that were (perhaps) made by others.
"YMMV". --Mike Schwartz (talk) 10:22, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Someone "who may have forgotten exponentiation from school", perhaps? (being charitable). Which would support putting "one in eleven million" in the body and the mathematics in a footnote. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:42, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Wikiblame reveals that the original (2018) text was close to the length of the mean tropical year, 365.24219 days (relative error of 9·10-8)[1] and shortened to close to the length of the mean tropical year, 365.24219 days (relative error of 9·10) in a 2023 edit that made several changes described as "wikilinks, ref formatting grammar"[2] Perhaps they didn't understand the notation (and the use of a mid dot as decimal separator contrary to WP:DECIMALS may not have helped), which rather goes to show the sense in JMF's suggestion. NebY (talk) 10:33, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 7 April 2026

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Change "9·10" to "9·10−8". Change "8·10" to "8·10−7".

These are both relative errors in the section "Intercalation", the first for the revised Julian calendar and the second for the Gregorian calendar. ~2026-21402-33 (talk) 05:48, 7 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I did substantially what was requested. I redid the relative error calculations and changed the 8 to a 9 in the second request. I also removed an html comment that was not substantiated by a citation. I found that the error was introduced in this edit] by MedRobo (talk · contribs) at 17:04 UT, 10 May 2023. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:56, 7 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Edit fails verification

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This edit claims that Section 5.8.3 in a paper by Simon et al. supports the claim "this is slightly less than the actual orbital period, 365.256363 days." The section in question gives equations for 10 parameters, and the number 365.256363 does not appear in this section. Please explain how this section verifies the claim Jc3s5h (talk) 23:43, 1 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As it is now getting bogged down in needlessly precise detail, I will just delete my footnote that attempted to give the "true" figure. The citations came from other articles, unchecked--𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:51, 1 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
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