Poll: 6÷2(1+2)

6/2(1+2) = ?

  • 9

    Votes: 516 68.9%

  • 1

    Votes: 233 31.1%
  • Total voters
    749
scott212 said:
You are imagining there is a:

*
symbol in between 2 and (1+2)

:p

It's definitely 1.
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there is no imagining, its the absolute basics.

edit;
nitefly. Those calculators require you to know bidmas before you enter it - some do not. (that must be how some people here passed... relying on their calculators!)

For everyone that thinks it 1 heres what you should do.

Read about Bidmas. Then have a go. forget the calculators and write it down by using the Bidmas you just learnt.

If you still get 1 as the answer I'm not sure what I reccomend you should do.
 
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It was depressing enough on facebook but still understandable... But on here? Bastion of all that is anti-facebook for it's idiotic users and uneducated opinions?

Wow...
 
ghost101 said:
2(1+2)

is meaningless without a * there.

In fact as mentioned, excel, c# and c++ won't let you leave it at just that.
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Yes, I agree.

My point is in practical application of maths you usually take:

2(1+2) = (2(1)+2(2))

In the absence of the multiplication symbol you would expand out the brackets. My degree is heavily maths intensive and that is how I would interpret the expression in solving various problems.
 
Why would Casio produce calculators which didn't do BODMAS? Surely it would be fairly simple to program.

I think all this question really highlights is that people should use:

x
- * (a+b)
y

or

x
------
y(a+b)

instead of using the ÷ symbol. :p
 
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Redmint said:
Why would Casio produce calculators which didn't do BODMAS? Surely it would be fairly simple to program.
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I guess it simple enough to learn. Calculators are meant to be used once you know the basics so you can speed things up. They're not made to rely on... and 32 people in this thread rely on calculators without knowing the basics and now got pwn3d by bidmas.

There are ones which have it intergrated... but if you knew it in the first place it wouldn't matter if your calc could/couldn't do it.
 
scott212 said:
Yes, I agree.

My point is in practical application of maths you usually take:

2(1+2) = (2(1)+2(2))

In the absence of the multiplication symbol you would expand out the brackets. My degree is heavily maths intensive and that is how I would interpret the expression in solving various problems.
Click to expand...

Forget practical applications, answer the question as you wrote it.
 
The question is fundamentally flawed. No physicist would touch that equation with a bargepole. If we replaced the numbers with variables we would have:

6 / 2(1+2) = x

a / b(c+b) = x

which does not clearly define what the solution could be as it will depend on the order of precedence. Also a/b(c+b) could be interpreted either as:

a
________
b(c+b)

or

a
_ (c+b)
b

No equation would leave itself to be so misconstrued.
 
Definately 9.

For the answer to be 1 it would have to be:

6/(2(2+1))

Would it not?

And you can stick anything in a calculator and get different results....its all about the buttons you press, so you can get both answers by typing it in different ways.
 
Gangster said:
I guess it simple enough to learn. Calculators are meant to be used once you know the basics so you can speed things up. They're not made to rely on... and 32 people in this thread rely on calculators without knowing the basics and now got pwn3d by bidmas.

There are ones which have it intergrated... but if you knew it in the first place it wouldn't matter if your calc could/couldn't do it.
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Would not agree with you.

a / b(c+b) is =/= a / b * (c+b) in a practical sense. It is too open to interpretation.

This is also where you'll get the difference between pure mathematicians and engineers/physicists who use and apply maths.
 
burrell said:
WRONG, AGAIN. It's a BASIC rule of maths, get taught it in secondary school.
Click to expand...

*face*
*desk*

I can verify that brackets come before indices which come before multiplication and division which come before addition and subtraction. Hence BIDMAS.

Yahoo answers style source: I'm at Westminster school with a pretty much guaranteed A* in IGCSE Maths.
 
The expression is horribly written. If you're a 13 year old in a maths lesson then the answer is 9, but anyone who actually uses maths would interpret it as:

6
______
2(1+2)
 
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Gangster said:
I guess it simple enough to learn. Calculators are meant to be used once you know the basics so you can speed things up. They're not made to rely on... and 32 people in this thread rely on calculators without knowing the basics and now got pwn3d by bidmas.
Click to expand...

If by pwn3d you mean was taught otherwise and has never been caught out by such a question before even at degree level, then I bow my head in humble pwndom :p

Having never been caught out by this before, I would have instinctly plumped for one. I guess the reason many people have 'fallen for it' is that questions are purposefully arranged to avoid this problem as it can be misleading, as some have pointed out. Even then, many posters say there isn't an obvious answer.

The more you know... :p
 
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