Contradiction or not?
rogersgeorge on March 8th, 2020
When you multiply something by a hundred, you get more or bigger, right? In math class we used to add two zeros to a number to multiply it by a hundred. Well, take a look at this sentence:
The galaxies – 100 times less massive than our Milky Way – are now among the smallest known to host such big black holes.
https://earthsky.org/space/astronomers-find-13-wandering-black-holes-in-dwarf-galaxies
Can you have something a hundred times less? If you can, what are you multiplying by a hundred?
Yes, the sentence is idiomatic, but still, I think it’s better to write what you mean. The sentence means one hundredth as massive.
Harrumpf.
Oh—here’s a picture:
When you multiply a negative number by 100 you get a smaller number. 100 x -2 = -200. (I’m not sure what that has to do with the linguistic question, though.)
I understood the meaning of the quoted sentence.
I understand the meaning of the substitute sentence (but not as clearly).
Here is how I would say it: The galaxies – 1% as massive as our Milky Way – are now among the smallest known to host such big black holes.
But since I don’t understand the concept of black holes, none of the sentences make a lot of sense to me!