dot product vs star symbol ?

[salvomic]

yes, ok...
but, rigorously speaking, "dot" and "times" are used also for "dot product" and "vectorial product" (this one also with "wedge" \( \wedge \), sometimes)...
gradient \( \nabla \vec{v} \)
divergence \( \nabla\cdot \vec{v} \)
curl \( \nabla\times \vec{v} \)
dot product \( \vec{u}\cdot\vec{v} \)
vectorial product \( \vec{u}\times\vec{v} \) (or \( \vec{u}\wedge\vec{v} \))
That said, I think that something like "times" (\(\times\)) (or also "dot" (\(\cdot\))) is better than the star *, for multiplication