History Main / MisplacedADecimalPoint

** Another episode featuring another hologram named [[DrillSergeantNasty Queeg]][[spoiler: actually Holly pulling a prank on the crew]] insults Holly's IQ in this manner.

* Plato's ten-fold error, mentioned below in RealLife, shows up as a plot point in ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis'', both in regards to the distances Plato gave, [[spoiler: as well as the number of {{Orichalcum}} beads required to make the Atlantean [[UpgradeArtifact ascension device]] work properly.]]

* A pilot on a flight from Maraba to Belem, on reading his flight plan, found his course was written as "0270". He interpreted it as 270 degrees (west), but in the flight plan it was assumed there was a decimal before the last digit, so the course was actually 027.0 degrees (roughly north-north-east). [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_254 The plane ended up crashing in the jungle hundreds of miles from Belem when the fuel finally ran out]]; 13 people died.

* In the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse ''X-Wing: Mercy Kill,'' main character Voort saBinring is a genius mathematician using his skill for strategy and tactics both in starship combat and in commando situations. He develops one of these vaudevillian schemes to capture the villain (of course, the reader is not told the details because otherwise [[UnspokenPlanGuarantee the scheme would fail]]) but when executing it, he decides he had "missed a variable" when they kidnapped a person who was supposed to be kidnapped by other people to attract attention.

This doesn't happen nearly as often in real life among mathematicians and scientists, since decimal notation is usually not the easiest way to write something. More common are radicals, fractions proper and improper, constants (such as pi or the natural base), and scientific notation[[note]]Though technically, using the wrong exponent here is equivalent to misplacing the decimal point, sometimes over many orders of magnitude[[/note]]. It does, however, happen at times--not very often (as traditionally one keeps track of things in terms of integer multiples of the lowest common currency, such as integers of cents instead of decimals of dollars)--in finance. It was an occupational hazard for engineers and scientists in the days of slide rules -- see the Real Life section for details.

* In ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' comics, Victor Von Doom misplaced a decimal when planning a clandestine scientific experiment. When his roomate Reed Richards tried to point it out to him, Doom went into a rage at the suggestion that he could have made a mistake and went ahead anyway. The experiment literally blew up in his face, scarring and forever embittering him against Richards, convinced that he must have changed the calculations in an attempt to sabotage him.

* In ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The Pyramid at the End of the World", a misplaced decimal point during a biochemical experiment results in a highly-voracious bacteria that threatens to wipe out all life on Earth within a year, if it gets out into the atmosphere.

* In ''Series/Doctor Who'' episode "The Pyramid at the End of the World", a misplaced decimal point during a biochemical experiment results in a highly-voracious bacteria that threatens to wipe out all life on Earth within a year, if it gets out into the atmosphere.

* In ''{{Touhou}}'', ''Mountain of Faith'' has a bug where Marisa Kirisame's lasers are ten times as powerful than they are supposed to be.

** Something similar can happen whenever someone mentions a "billion" of something. In the United States it means a thousand millions, in other countries it means a million millions (a thousand milliards). This is presumably one reason that Creator/StephenHawking used the word "million" in multiples throughout his book ''Literature/ABriefHistoryOfTime'' to describe large numbers.

[[folder: Film ]]

This doesn't happen nearly as often in real life among mathematicians and scientists, since decimal notation is usually not the easiest way to write something. More common are radicals, fractions proper and improper, constants (such as pi or the natural base), and scientific notation[[note]]Though technically, using the wrong exponent here is equivalent to misplacing the decimal point, sometimes over many orders of magnitude[[/note]]. It does, however, happen at times--not very often (as traditionally one keeps track of things in terms of integer multiples of the lowest common currency, such as integers of cents instead of decimals of dollars)--in finance. It was an occupational hazard for engineers and scientists in the days of slide rules (roughly 1850 to 1970) as the slide rule does not keep track of the decimal point, it needed to be tracked mentally throughout the calculation. It was common to do the accurate calculation by slide rule, then recalculate with low accuracy by hand to check the location of the decimal point.

This doesn't happen nearly as often in real life among mathematicians and scientists, since decimal notation is usually not the easiest way to write something. More common are radicals, fractions proper and improper, constants (such as pi or the natural base), and scientific notation[[note]]Though technically, using the wrong exponent here is equivalent to misplacing the decimal point, sometimes over many orders of magnitude[[/note]]. It does, however, happen at times--not very often (as traditionally one keeps track of things in terms of integer multiples of the lowest common currency, such as integers of cents instead of decimals of dollars)--in finance.

* At the end of ''SupermanRedSon'' [[spoiler:Luthor's plan to destroy Superman and TakeOverTheWorld seems to have succeeded without a hitch...only for it to be revealed that Superman is still alive due to Luthor having misplaced a decimal point when he calculated Supes' density. However, due to Luthor having made Superman see the error of his ways as well as the world being a better place under Luthor's rule, he decides to let Luthor think he won and live the rest of his days in anonymity.]]

** Something similar can happen whenever someone mentions a "billion" of something. In the United States it means a thousand millions, in other countries it means a million millions (a thousand milliards).

* The given cause of the plan's failure in ''OfficeSpace'' was that Michael misplaced a decimal point, which results in far too much money being siphoned off. He claims that he always makes similar minor mistakes.

** In ''TheMuppetMovie'', Kermit tries to buy a car at a [[HonestJohnsDealership rather disreputable dealership]], but can't afford any of them, until Sweetums swats a fly which creates a decimal point in a price tag; the dealer finds himself selling a $1195 car for $11.95, after paying a $12 trade-in on the Muppets' [[TheAllegedCar old lemon]].

* In ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' comics, [[DoctorDoom Victor Von Doom]] misplaced a decimal when planning a clandestine scientific experiment. When his roomate Reed Richards tried to point it out to him, Doom went into a rage at the suggestion that he could have made a mistake and went ahead anyway. The experiment literally blew up in his face, scarring and forever embittering him against Richards, convinced that he must have changed the calculations in an attempt to sabotage him.

** Another episode featuring another hologram named [[DrillSergeantNasty Queeg]][[note]]actually Holly pulling a prank on the crew[[/note]] insults Holly's IQ in this manner.

** Another episode featuring another hologram named [[DrillSergeantNasty Queeg]] insults Holy's IQ in this manner.

* In the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse ''X-Wing: Mercy Kill,'' main character Voort saBinring is a genius mathematician using his skill for strategy and tactics both in starship combat and in commando situations. He develops one of these vaudevillian schemes to capture the villain (of course, the reader is not told the details because otherwise the scheme would fail) but when executing it, he decides he had "missed a variable" when they kidnapped a person who was to be kidnapped by other people to attract attention.

* Plato's ten-fold error, mentioned below in RealLife, shows up as a plot point in ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis'', both in regards to the distances Plato gave, [[spoiler: as well as the number of [[AppliedPhlebotinum Orichalcum beads]] required to make the Atlantean [[UpgradeArtifact ascension device]] work properly.]]

* In the ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' episode ''Outlaw'', the Daltons (the original ones, not the nephews from the later stories) try to divide their loot among themselves. Having had no actual schooling, they [[EpicFail fail horribly, turning a simple long division into a mathematical nightmare]]. Bob Dalton uses his gun to place a decimal point "to simplify things".

* In a brilliant aversion of StupidJetpackHitler German physicist Walther Bothe, who worked at their atomic bomb project, did exactly this when he determined the neutron free-flight length in graphite to be almost ten times smaller than it was in reality, forcing German nuclear project to use much more expensive and finicky heavy water.