A microblog post by @kareem_carr saying “as soon as i saw they were using asterisks for multiplication symbols, i knew we were in trouble”, with an image from the “Office of the United States Trade Representative (Executive Office of the President)” showing the mathematical formula $\Delta \tau_i = \frac{x_i - m_i}{\varepsilon * \varphi * m_i}$. The formula show asterisks (*) instead of multiplication signs (×).
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What’s worse is that epsilon and phi don’t need to be there at all. They have some underlying economy meaning, but they just cancel the variables out by conveniently setting them to 4 and 0.25.
And that they said epsilon < 0
Look, folks, let me tell you, when it comes to latex—nobody knows latex better than me, okay? Believe me. I’ve had people, the best people, telling me about latex. It’s fantastic material, really incredible stuff. Smooth, shiny, a little snug, just the way I like it—really makes an impression, believe me.
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I’m missing something. I often use asterisk to indicate multiplication. Clearly you guys are seeing this as implying something troublesome, but I don’t know what.
Of course, I also wouldn’t trust me to decide tax rates, so there’s that.
Asterisks for multiplication are fine and normal and common in typed text. Where it’s unusual is in text that’s been typeset, where using things like asterisks for multiplication defeat the point of typesetting, It would be like going through all the effort to typeset an equation, but still saying sqrt(x) instead of using the square root symbol.
Thanks! That is sensible. I thought it was inputting something about their methodology.
Which seems to be “ask the nearest clown car, and use the worst idea.”
Honestly the worst thing about this equation isn’t the fact that they had poor typesetting, it was that they used decorative constants. The ε and φ values they chose just cancel out. The equation is equivalent to (xᵢ - mᵢ) / mᵢ.
Asterisks are not commonly used in place of a multiplication sign when typesetting a mathematical formula
To mathematicians, it’s like turning in an essay in college with wingdings as placeholders for words
I had the same question and got a lot of good answers. Link included if you’re interested.
ok, you answered your own question, any other?
I didn’t. I what to know why people who know more then I do think it’s a problem. The process is called “learning.”
Those aren’t asterisks, those are assholes. Vonnegut would be impressed.
Ok, but maybe start with Economics…
Or maybe start with “socializing and behaving is a society” like half the focus of per-alfabetization classes (the other half being how to use the bathroom).
