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 (×).
That’s no multiplication,
they just dereferenced the entire US economy.
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”.
So epsilon and phi are just constants that cancel each other out? Wow. This is legit the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard, narrowly beating Narendra Modi’s (a+b)^2 debacle (he said that the 2ab was ‘extra’). Fucking illiterate, aren’t they?
No way they pulled out the Greek letters for .25×4 lol
According to this article, even the value of epsilon is wrong. Epsilon stands for ‘price elasticity’, which seems to measure how much tariffs would affect the price of an item. 0.25 is the value used by the White House, but some economists have come out saying it is actually closer to 0.945, indicating that prices are affected far greater by tariffs than what these buffoons claim. But even with the correct value, the formula makes no sense.
Without the fancy shit, it’s basically (exports/imports) - 1.
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.
When I went to college the dot was used for the dot product (scalar product) of two vectors while the cross was used for the cross product (vector product) of two vectors.
Since in this case numbers (read: one-dimensional vectors) are multiplied, the dot product is used, which should be denoted by a dot.
(But really, if I were to write a formula in Latex I would just use the * symbol, too.)
I think this is true ONLY in formal writing, which this document clearly intends to be despite it’s complete inanity. Asterisks are used in computer code for multiplication and shorthand messages/emails all the time. Not many scientists/engineers/mathematicians out there that can’t write at least an excel formula
I don’t know, to me a * b * c is basically just the exact same as a • b • c but just easier to type on a computer. If you were writing it down on paper or a black board they would probably use dots. Coding often uses * because who wants to type in those dots would be a pain in the ass and the * basically looks the closest to a dot.
But they weren’t just “typing it on a computer”, they were typesetting it in latex, and trying to make it look grandiose. But they just showed to everyone in the know that they don’t know what they’re doing.
What if it’s a convolution though 🤔
I would love to explain, but it’s pretty convoluted
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 (
\timesin LaTex), so they just use the asterisk instead
The US government falls in the second category.
there is a third case:
- they are using a programming language
Or me, doing math for school and being too lazy to type /cdot every time
Basically what other people in the comments are saying, but here is a video Matt Parker explaining it: https://youtu.be/j04IAbWCszg?t=461
There really isn’t any. It’s just a huge nitpick. * is commonly used for multiplication, especially in online contexts in order to avoid confusing multiplication with the letter x when wider symbols aren’t available.
no one who would have any experience in the field would write it like that.
it’s just a sign that the people who did it have no idea what they are doing.
Just guessing but real mathematicians would know how to properly build the formula. I guess in higher maths we use the ‘x’ rather than ‘*’.
Not a big deal but may show that the people doing it have no idea what they are doing.
Typically you’d use either nothing (just put the symbols next to each other) or in cases where that would be unclear, you’d use the centered dot ⋅
what baffles me is they managed to get all those other symbols but not the multiplication? So weird. Kinda makes me think they used ai to generate this and the ai just had them all next to eachother so the human added asterisks manually for some reason.
With the × Unicode character: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_sign
Most of the time in math, you just put the symbols you want to multiply without anything between them, the multiplication is implicit, or if you really want to make it explicit, you put a dot or a cross. The only time you would use an * is when programming.
they used epsilon and phi all your arguments are invalid and all your base are belong to us
Anyone here speaks Greek ? What does it say?
direct translation: “you’re fucked”
tariff = (export - import) / (<??? factor> × <another ??? factor that cancels the first one out> × import)
You might want to go with “multiplicative inverse”.
Bold of you to suggest that attempting to teach these people would change anything on the world.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
