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 (×).
There’s also the “0.25 × 4” thing. ε is set to 0.25, and φ is set to 4. No nuance, no thought about how the economy actually works. Just make it so they can pretend they’re thinking about it how demand will change.
I have a feeling that they made it up after the fact because the whole point of ε and φ there should be that they come with their own formulas that depend on the demand itself, instead of just being set to a constant value. I don’t imagine a straight line is a good enough model for the world economy, especially when fucking around with stuff that can implode it.
But ChatGPT does not know that, and especially won’t expand on that if you ask it “make my formula seem more scientific”.
That’s no multiplication,
they just dereferenced the entire US economy.
I don’t get the significance. How should the formula be represented?
Most mathematicians, engineers, and scientists don’t use the asterisk symbol for multiplication. Most don’t write any symbol as it’s implicit. If they do use a symbol they would use a dot or x symbol (though never an actual x). In mathematics, the asterisk is mostly only used to represent convolutions.
Most common:
abc
Less common:
a • b • c
a × b × c
Never:
a * b * c
While to most people this doesn’t really matter (and should feel free using * for multiplication). It shows someone with minimal formal experience in mathematics using this formula
Yeah, asterisk to indicate multiplication is much, much more common amongst coders.
… And script kiddie DOGE interns.
