Mathematical discoveries caused by misprints?

[Stephen Tashi]

There is at least one story about mathematical discoveries caused my a misunderstood homework assignment, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig . Are there any stories about mathematical discoveries caused by misprints?

 

[jedishrfu]

When I was in college, one of the students in CM found an exact solution to a problem that could only be done numerically to the surprize of the prof. Later the prof discovered that in fact it was solved analytically but for the purposes of the textbook was used otherwise.

For math the nearest I can think of is this story about Marjorie Rice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Rice

 

[jedishrfu]

There's a book that goes into mistakes in math through the ages:

Magnificent Mistakes in Mathematics by Posamentier and Lehmann

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BH0VOXE/?tag=pfamazon01-20