This teenager just discovered an error in a decades-old maths museum exhibit

Meet Joseph Rosenfeld.

The 15-year-old from Virginia was on holiday with his family in Boston, but clearly still had his thinking cap on during a trip to the city's Museum of Science, where he noticed a mistake in a 34-year-old exhibit.

Joseph was looking at the “Mathematica: A World of Numbers...and Beyond” exhibit when he spotted an error in an equation for the golden ratio, where minus signs were being used instead of plus signs.

Two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities and the formula is often used in art and architecture:

“It was cool,” Joseph told Boston.com. “At first, I wasn’t sure, I thought maybe I had it wrong, but I was excited.”

Joseph said he double checked he was right before leaving a note at the museum's front desk. Eventually the museum wrote back to say they would be amending the display.

“You are right that the formula for the Golden Ratio is incorrect. We will be changing the – sign to a + sign on the three places it appears if we can manage to do it without damaging the original,” wrote Alana Parkes, the museum’s exhibit content developer.

On Tuesday, the Museum of Science released a statement praising Joseph's keen eye, but also explained that “the way the museum presents the Golden Ratio in its exhibit is in fact the less common—but no less accurate—way to present it.”

Joseph told Boston.com that he wants to study at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he leaves school. Looks to us like he's well on his way.

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