My favorite erratum of all time: in 1977, whilst browsing the Journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the Caltech library, I saw a little slip of paper tucked into one issue correcting a mistake in an earlier volume. It read as follows:

In the article "Devote Every Effort to Running Successfully Socialist Research Institutes" (Scientia Sinica, v. XIX, n. 5) the phrase "arch unrepentant capitalist-roader in the Party Deng Xiaoping" should read "Deng Xiaoping."

(Deng had been recently rehabilitated.) Alas, somebody else beat me in sending it to The New Yorker...

(many thanks to Adam Safir http://www.anstyn.com/ for reminding me of this, and for teaching me the word "corrigendum" ...)

_{TopicHumor - TopicSociety - TopicScience - TopicPersonalHistory - 2004-06-21}

"Teng Hsiao-Ping" in original, updated to "Deng Xiaoping" above

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