someone teach them LaTeX

https://mander.xyz/post/27771350

someone teach them LaTeX - Mander

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 (×).

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:

abc

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

I don’t know, to me a * b * c is basically just the exact same as abc 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.