this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
857 points (96.4% liked)
Memes
45666 readers
1297 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Hi, I’m stupid, is it 1+2 first, then multiple it by 2, then divide 6 by 6?
Or is it 1+2, then divide 6 by 2, then multiple?
I think it’s the first one but I’ve got no idea.
It's actually "both". There are two conventions. One is a bit more popular in science and engineering and the other one in the general population. It's actually even more complicated than that (thus the long blog post) but the most correct answer would be to point out that the implicit multiplication after the division is ambiguous. So it's not really "solvable" in that form without context.
You’d think we would’ve solve this with Einstein or Aristotle or something.
It's not a math problem, it's a communication problem. The person who wrote it down didn't make themselves clear
It's totally clear. It's a number divided by a factorised term, as per The Distributive Law and Terms.