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SIGNIFICANT FIGURES Everyone measured. It broke anyway.

Method

Anyone can tell the orbiter story. The work is knowing what to leave out.

This page is the protocol. It runs before anything is written, and it is the reason some very well-known figures do not appear on this site.

Rule 01

Two sources means two organisations.

Independence is counted in organisations, not in links. Two organisations means two separate editorial chains that could each have caught the other's mistake. If one of them is the only place a number comes from, there is one source, no matter how many tabs are open.

Counts as one source, not two

  • Two pages of the same site One editorial process, one set of assumptions, one chance to be wrong.
  • A site and its own syndication A press release reprinted under three mastheads is still the press release.
  • Three outlets citing one wire story The agency reported it once. The count is one, not three.

There is one exception, and it is narrow. The primary record counts on its own for facts inside its own scope: an investigation board reporting on the failure it investigated, a museum reporting measurements of the object it holds. The exception does not extend to an organisation summarising its own programme. That is why the Mars Climate Orbiter article rests on a single document and the Hubble article does not: the first is the investigation, the second is NASA describing a NASA telescope, and a figure that only NASA carries is attributed to NASA.

There is a harder case, and this site publishes it rather than hiding it. Two genuinely separate organisations can both be reporting the work of one person. The Vasa measurements are like that: two independent newsrooms, one researcher behind both. That is normal for an archaeological finding and it is acceptable, but the researcher is named in the article rather than presented as consensus.

Rule 02

A search result is a lead, not evidence.

  1. 01 Primary The investigation report, the board of inquiry, the operator, the museum that holds the object.
  2. 02 Secondary A newsroom or specialist publication doing its own reporting on the primary record.
  3. 03 Lead A search summary, an encyclopedia, an aggregator. Useful for finding evidence. Never evidence.

The test is whether the document was opened. A summary that says a report contains a figure is not the report. When the primary document cannot be retrieved, the claim does not get promoted on the strength of how familiar it sounds.

Rule 03

Every claim carries a state.

The state decides how the sentence is written, not just whether it is believed.

VERIFIED

Two or more independent organisations, or the primary record itself for facts inside its scope.

Stated flatly, with no hedge.

SINGLE-SOURCE

One source only, and no second organisation confirms it.

Attributed to that source by name, or cut.

DISPUTED

Sources conflict, or a figure is widely repeated in a form the record does not support.

The conflict is reported as part of the story.

UNVERIFIED

No source holds it up.

Cut. Not softened into “reportedly”.

The last one is the whole point. Reportedly, some sources say and it is often claimed are ways of publishing a figure while disclaiming responsibility for it. A figure that nothing holds up is removed from the sentence.

Rule 04

The protocol is only real when it costs something.

The first video was planned with six cases. It shipped with five.

The sixth was Air Canada Flight 143, the Gimli Glider: an aircraft fuelled in pounds instead of kilograms that ran dry in the air. The official Board of Inquiry report is hosted in the FAA document library. The server returned 403 Forbidden. Nothing in that segment — the date, the altitude, the passenger count, the density conversion — had ever been confirmed against a document. All of it rested on a search summary, which this protocol treats as a lead.

The events are well attested and the segment was very probably fine. That is not the standard. It was cut, and it stays cut until the report is retrieved and a second organisation confirms each figure.

First video · claim ledger

Claims mapped
36
Verified
29
Single-source
4
Disputed
2
Unverified
1
Segments cut
1

Across the 5 articles on this site: 9 source entries and 9 figures cut, each listed with its reason.

Rule 05

Corrections are published, not quietly edited.

If a figure here is wrong, the useful thing is the document that shows it. Send the source, not the correction on its own. Articles carry a modified date when they change.

significantfiguresvideo@gmail.com