Aristotle's all Greek to Cambridge classicists as inscription by philosopher is misspelled on £1.3m building

Academics chose to inspire students with a line from Aristotle which translates as 'all men by nature desiring to know'.

But the word 'phusei', meaning 'by nature', was spelled with an English S rather than the Greek letter sigma, which looks similar to a capital E.

Details of the blunder came to light after the department's Professor of Classics, Mary Beard, complained about it on her blog.

She also criticised the glass doors on which the inscription appears as they are too heavy to open manually.

They can be operated using an electronic system intended for wheelchair users, but this is so slow it causes 'rage and bottlenecks'.

Professor Beard, 55, wrote: 'Even the gods have shown their disapproval in their own inimitable way.

'We decided to have some nice ancient writing across the offending doors. One of the quotes chosen was that famous line by Aristotle. But look what happened to the S of 'Phusei'... an English S not a Greek S.'

Turning her ire to the doors themselves, she added: 'To open them you have to press an electronic “open door” button - and they then sweep aside dramatically in front of you. Dramatically and slowly.

'So, at busy times (like, on the hour when lectures are changing over), there is a mass of bodies trying to get into and out of the building, but needing to wait for the stately pace of the doors' operation.

'In any case, as soon as you push them open and then someone pushes from the other side, the doors take on a life of their own and come back and attack you.