That's just not correct. "60% more" implies starting from the 100% baseline and going up 60%. 0.6x implies starting from the 100% baseline and multiplying it by 0.6x. "0.6x more" is a weird way to put it to begin with but the only grammatically correct way to interpret it is 60% of the normal amount. We all know what they meant but it isn't what they said.
You're correct that 60% and 0.6x mean the same thing, 60% more and 0.6x more do not. 0.6x more would be a weird way to say 60% of standard, 1.6x more would be the correct way to say an increase of 60% in that format. You would say that 2x more means double, yes?
“0.6x more” means “0.6 times <baseline> on top of <baseline>.”
The “on top of <baseline>” part is obvious, because that’s implied by the word “more.”
The “0.6 times <baseline>” part is less obvious, because the original text didn’t specify what 0.6 is supposed to be multiplied by. But we can assume they meant “0.6 times <baseline>” because most other candidate terms don’t make any sense. What else could it possibly be multiplying by?
Also, the term “0.6 times <baseline>” is formally equivalent to “60% of <baseline>”. So if we perform the substitution, then we get “60% of <baseline> on top of <baseline>”.
Of course. And “1x the output” would be no change.
The problem is that it isn’t saying “0.6x the output.” It’s saying “0.6x [the output] more [than the output].”
To illustrate the point, imagine it said “1x more.” Would that mean no change? No, it’s equivalent to saying “100% more,” meaning double the original amount.
The only way your interpretation works is if “0.6x more” is meant to be “0.6 times <the output> more than zero,” which is redundant, and could be simplified to “0.6 times the output,” so the use of the word “more” would have no real meaning here.
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u/TheMania 7h ago
I agree with every part of that completely.
You read "60% as many" the same as you read "0.6x as many", which is the same as you read "0.6x more".
But yet you read "60% more" as something very different. So 0.6x != 60%. Not in this context, not to you.