{"id":1549,"date":"2011-10-30T19:11:31","date_gmt":"2011-10-30T23:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/?p=1549"},"modified":"2011-10-30T19:11:31","modified_gmt":"2011-10-30T23:11:31","slug":"can-the-new-york-times-magazine-please-hire-a-mathematically-literate-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/30\/can-the-new-york-times-magazine-please-hire-a-mathematically-literate-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the New York Times Magazine Please Hire a Mathematically Literate Editor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times Magazine<\/a><\/em>\u00a0provides almost\u00a0inexhaustible\u00a0fodder for this blog. \u00a0Recently I have written about prostates<\/a>, cell phones<\/a>, and ketogenic diets<\/a>, based on articles in the Magazine<\/em>. \u00a0Normally the articles are well researched and provocative. \u00a0But sometimes things seem to go a bit haywire in the editing process, and the Magazine<\/em>\u00a0lets through stuff that it really should catch (see, for instance, my post on nonsensical graphics<\/a>). \u00a0This week in the midst of a fascinating (and scary) article on the state of US\u00a0bio-defense<\/a>, there came the following sentence:<\/p>\n

In hundreds of experiments, scientist weaponized the bacteria to extraordinary potency and the proceeded to mix the slurry with another agent… which multiplied the effect logarithmically.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suppose I should be happy that the Magazine<\/em>\u00a0did not go with the lazy “exponentially”, but really: \u00a0what can it mean to multiply an effect “logarithmically”? \u00a0Take x and multiple by log x? \u00a0Base 10? \u00a0e? \u00a0This does not seem the case based on the following sentences, where the result “shatter[s] the human immune system”. \u00a0It seems more likely that the author was searching for something to add a mathematical veneer and grabbed the only function remembered from a long-ago high school math class.<\/p>\n

“… which greatly increased the effect” might not sound so sophisticated, but I think would have been a better choice here.<\/p>\n

P.S. \u00a0I now recall that I have seen this strange use of logarithmically before<\/a>. \u00a0Perhaps I can have a category where I track this usage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times Magazine\u00a0provides almost\u00a0inexhaustible\u00a0fodder for this blog. \u00a0Recently I have written about prostates, cell phones, and ketogenic diets, based on articles in the Magazine. \u00a0Normally the articles are well researched and provocative. \u00a0But sometimes things seem to go a bit haywire in the editing process, and the Magazine\u00a0lets through stuff that it really … Continue reading “Can the New York Times Magazine Please Hire a Mathematically Literate Editor?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-or-in-the-press"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}