this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
857 points (96.4% liked)

Memes

45894 readers
1375 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. 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
857
6÷2(1+2) (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

https://zeta.one/viral-math/

I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.

It's about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it's worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I'm probably biased because I wrote it :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

6 / 2 * 3 into 6 * 3 / 2 (note that I moved the division with the 2)

And note that it doesn't work if the multiply was an addition. e.g. 6/2+3=6 but 6+3/2=7.5. Multiplication and division are both binary operators, and you can't move them around unless you also move the term to the left with it. i.e. 6/2+3=6. 3+6/2=6.

Just remember that left to the six is an “imaginary” (don’t quote me ^^) multiplication

No, to the left of the 6 is an actual plus sign, but we don't write plus signs if it's at the start of an expression. +6 and x6 aren't the same thing at all (and, since x is a binary operator, you couldn't write just x6 anyway - there would have to be a term to it's left). No expression ever starts with x6.

That’s not really possible with multiplication because “/2” is not a valid notation for “1/2”

It's not a valid notation for multiplication either - both multiplication and division are binary operators and must be written with 2 terms.