Carl T. BergstromJan 16, 2023

Today is Blue Monday, the third Monday of January and supposedly the unhappiest day of the year—according to math!

In fact, the math behind this claim is complete bullshit.

We use the blue monday formula as an example of mathiness, formulas and expressions that may look and feel like math even as they disregard the logical coherence and formal rigor of actual mathematics, in our book _Calling Bullshit_.

Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Jan 16, 2023

@ct_bergstrom Of course your general point is 100% right.

But I'm interested in the claim that "when you raise a quantity to a power, that power must be a dimensionless number".

What if I thought we get happier through life, with happiness increasting exponentially? Then H = e^t where t is time since birth.

Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Jan 16, 2023

@ct_bergstrom Is it perhaps that one or other of the terms in the exponentiation has to be dimensionless?

Come to think of, what even IS the unit of e^t?

Show threadCarl T. BergstromJan 16, 2023
@mike It's a very good question. I think you always take e ^ r t where r has units of a rate (1/time).
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕
@ct_bergstrom @ct_bergstrom Let me know what you come up with 🙂
Jan 16, 2023 at 6:13pmWeb
Show threadCarl T. BergstromJan 16, 2023
@mike Our replies may have crossed somehow in the cache — I think that when you raise e^t, t is always scaled by a rate r with units (1/time).
Show threadSophieJan 16, 2023
@ct_bergstrom @mike “always” is a bold claim. Btw, what if anything, gets filled up when dimensionless things proliferate?