Let's Iterate on That
A mathematician takes the jargon 'let's iterate' literally, panicking over cycles, fixed points and sensitive dependence in the company's planning process.
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Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2024-07-23-let-s-iterate-on-that/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
[Post subtitle] "Business jargon… and its mathematical dangers."
[1] Boss: "Good meeting, everyone. Let's keep iterating on this." Mathematician: *gasp*
[2] "Iterate? You want to take this plan of action, run it back through the process that produced it, and thus produce a new plan?" Boss: "Um… yes?"
[3] "And then do the same with the resulting plan? Over and over? To form a kind of dynamical planning system?" [chart: initial plan → Plan Process → output, looping back]
[4] "But… what if the system falls into an endless cycle, so f(Plan A) = Plan B, but f(Plan B) = Plan A?"
[5] "Or what if our plan converges to some fixed point, but a nearly identical starting plan would have converged to a different fixed point?"
[6] Boss: "Do you think that's likely?" Mathematician: "You tell me! I'm not the one unleashing chaos theory upon our firm!"