Nice IT piece about the debasement of mathematical terms

take everything

Thought this was a nice piece about the bastardization of mathematical terms by managerial morons. :pac:
Probably not entirely unrelated to the mess we're in.

Victor

I take issue with her use of the word "quantum" - most would interpret it as "amount" without qualification as to size.

ZRelation

TBH there's not a whole lot to that article. She's almost as guilty as the people she's giving out about for messing up terms...i.e. 'quantum', and ranting about mis-use of the term 'inflection-point' as describing maxima and minima when technically the term would be correct when applied to rates, which would commonly be used in the business world (growth rates etc.)

And not a word on mis-use of statistical terms/statistics, which is more worrying than someone showing they have no idea what they're talking about by using buzzwords.

Pherekydes

Metric is also a valid mathematical term meaning some sort of performance measurement.

She doesn't really understand the term 'exponential' either. It can be applied to many growth curves, not just ones which go "from almost flat to almost vertical". It would depend on the 'time' axis. In the early days of growth the graph might remain fairly flat for quite a while.

She did make several valid points, though. Ones I hate are the misuse of the terms 'decimate', 'proof', 'infinite' and 'geometric' (I heard George Hook using that one last week).

Anyways, rant over...I'm looking forward to the big match, where Ireland will decimate Wales with an infinitely better performance to please the geometrically larger crowd, which will prove Ireland belong in the top tier. Hopefully, not too many fans will literally drink themselves under the table.

Fremen

As Pherekydes said, business really does grow exponentially. When we talk about the economy "only" growing at, say, half a per cent per annum, that's still exponential growth. Just with a small exponent.

Capt'n Midnight

Victor wrote: »

I take issue with her use of the word "quantum" - most would interpret it as "amount" without qualification as to size.

You'd want to be as thick as a Planck to think that alright.

Michael Collins

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You'd want to be as thick as a Planck to think that alright.