Comment on a very emphatic answer

• Leviathan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It’s perfectly reasonable to read this as both (40-32)/2 and 40-(32/2) anywhere past basic math.

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  • SmartmanApps@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    No, it isn’t. Division before subtraction.

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• EnderofGames@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Even your “BODMAS” isn’t universal, lots of people learn “PEMDAS” or “BEDMAS”

  At any level of mathematics after elementary school, you never see terrible expressions like this. Well, except for facebook and twitter

  Take for example: 2/2*2 It is 0.5 or 2 depending on order. But if I were anything after high school (I was more complacent in high school, I guess) if someone gave me an arbitrarily solved equation or expression like this, I would be livid and raise hell at them for trying to do that.

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  • 10_0@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The fundamentals are literally the same, and the difference is in the words people use for the same thing, brackets and parentheses are used in the same way and only changes how the acronym is spelled. Powers, indices and exponents are the same thing. Here’s my version, PITDAT (parentheses, indices, times, divide, add, takeaway.)

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    • EnderofGames@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yes, the fundamentals the same, higher orders come first. BUT…

      -Multiplication comes before division in some forms, like PEMDAS. In the example I use, this changes the answer.

      -When you apply an operation, you should specify what it is operating on. In all of these acronyms, addition comes before subtraction, but with a different example:

      2 - 2 + 2

      The minus sign only applies to the middle term, by convention. It is the equivalent of “adding negative two”. You can quickly see that this expression is equal to 2.

      But if you use one of these acronyms, you end with this expression evaluating to -2. I would say it is almost universally accepted that 2 is the correct answer, and -2 is incorrect. Basically, all these acronyms end up being useless waste of time.

      I don’t know if I conveyed this the first time, but, as a lover of pure mathematics, this is something that does not have application in life or in study. It’s an utterly useless waste of time. There is never a case where someone give you numbers like this, where it is not clear what order the numbers should be applied in.

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      • SmartmanApps@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Multiplication comes before division in some forms, like PEMDAS. In the example I use, this changes the answer

        If you have both multiplication and division then you do them left to right. PEMDAS doesn’t mean multiplication first, nor does BEDMAS mean division first. It’s PE(MD)(AS) and BE(DM)(AS) where the bracketed parts are done left to right.

        you should specify what it is operating on

        Left associativity means it always operates on the following term. i.e. terms are associated with the sign on their left.

        The minus sign only applies to the middle term, by convention

        By the rule of left associativity.

        But if you use one of these acronyms, you end with this expression evaluating to -2

        No it doesn’t. How on Earth did you manage to get -2?

        all these acronyms end up being useless waste of time

        No they’re not, but I don’t know yet where you’re going wrong with them without seeing your working out.

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  • SmartmanApps@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Even your “BODMAS” isn’t universal, lots of people learn “PEMDAS” or “BEDMAS”

    The rules are universal, only the mnemonics used to remember the rules are different

    except for facebook and twitter

    … and high school Maths textbooks, and order of operations worksheet generators, and…

    2/2*2 It is 0.5 or 2 depending on order.

    It’s always 2. #MathsIsNeverAmbiguous

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    • EnderofGames@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The rules are universal, only the mnemonics used to remember the rules are different

      The rules and the acronyms describe different things. If you have to make more rules to say M and D are the same, and that you go left to right when you do them, then the basic rules you followed were flawed. The universal conventions of mathematics don’t need these acronyms confusing people.

      high school Maths textbooks

      I haven’t seen anything since early elementary school, not middle school, and certainly not high school. Regardless, if a textbook has it, it doesn’t make it right at all. If the acronyms are useless to learn, having them in a textbook doesn’t validate them.

      and order of operations worksheet generators

      …that’s one of the two examples you used? Did you think about that before you typed it out?

      It’s always 2. #MathsIsNeverAmbiguous

      IT IS AMBIGUOUS IN THIS POST AND ALL EXAMPLES I HAVE SHOWN. That is the problem at hand.

      There is no real problem solving in trying to decipher poorly written shit. It’s the equivalent if English classes took time out to give students worksheets with “foder” written on them, and expecting students to find out if the writer meant “folder” or “fodder”- no sentence context, just following a list of “rules”. It is not difficult to write mathematical expressions with clear context to how numbers relate, even with the lazy shortcuts and shorthand that mathematicians love.

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      • SmartmanApps@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The rules and the acronyms describe different things.

        No, they don’t.

        If you have to make more rules to say M and D are the same,

        I didn’t make more rules - that’s the existing rules. Here’s one of many graphics on the topic which are easy to find on the internet…

        Image

        …that’s one of the two examples you used?

        Yes. Did you try looking for one and ramping it up to the most difficult level? I’m guessing not.

        IT IS AMBIGUOUS IN THIS POST

        No, it isn’t. Division before subtraction, always.

        ALL EXAMPLES I HAVE SHOWN

        None of those have been ambiguous either, as I have pointed out.

        That is the problem at hand.

        The problem is people not obeying the rules of Maths.

        There is no real problem solving in trying to decipher poorly written shit

        It’s not poorly written. It’s written the exact way you’d find it in any Maths textbook.

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