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 (×).

  • BB84@mander.xyzOPEnglish
    401·
    8 days ago

    The only times anyone would use the asterisk as multiplication symbol are

    • they are doing some fancy math and it’s not the same kind of number multiplication we’re familiar with
    • they are on a computer, the keyboard does not have a (×) key, and they don’t know how to typeset it (\times in LaTex), so they just use the asterisk instead

    The US government falls in the second category.