Whats all this about, please explain.?

Question:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080403/ap_o...

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080403/ap_o...

Someone at the Smithsonian put up a display which incorrectly named the Precambrian as an era, when it technically isnt an era. An 11 year old spotted it and told them.

A display in the Smithsonian referred to the "Precambian Era" of prehistory. "Precambrian" is not an "era" -- it is longer than one era, and covers all time before the Cambrian era.

A boy noticed this mistake, reported it, and the Smithsonian admitted the error and is fixing it.

Read it again.but this time do it slowly as all the information is there.

To quote a passage from the article itself:

"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,"

The exhibit in question had been labelled as being within the 'precambrian ERA', however it cannot be classed as an era, to quote a definition:
"a period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event; a major division of geological time; an era is usually divided into two or more periods "

That was a very nice article to read, and is comforting to know the next generation show some hope of being uneffected by the lack of intelligence shown by their predecessors today.