Poll: 6÷2(1+2)
- Thread starter Barks
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Associate
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Again, you're being pretty ironic here Hatter as I think the major problem at this point is that you can't consider those with greater scope for perception on this matter than you have firstly that the training wheels that is PODMAS, or whatever you call it, taught in primary or secondary schools is not infallible and is intended to help children proceed through equations that would never be as badly worded as the initial one and is not something that would constrain more 'serious' practitioners of mathematics.
Secondly they say the equation is intentionally ambiguous and the fallacy trap that it wants people to fall into is not saying either '1' or '9', it is saying that it is definitively one over the other, which again you refuse to comprehend. Previous solutions to make it to '1' have been given even though you have repeatedly asked for them. As already said too, those 'in the know' have also said they would lean towards '1' on first inspection, myself included, over '9'. Maybe some introspection is order here.
To try and put this into context, very basic educative books on astronomy and the alignment of the planets have done and probably still do list Pluto as a planet, maybe in the form of "My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets" or something similar. Recently scientists have determined that very technically it is not, and is actually a sattelite rather than a planet. Does this mean the scientists are wrong since the apparantly infallible education system decided to print this in their books? If books continue to list it as one, does that mean the 'MVEMJSUNP' moniker intended to help children is an odious lie?
No, it means that bridges are often made for a greater good in education to help children make connections in complicated subjects easier, and that knowledge is ever-changing and coming out of a secondary-school assuming you are grounded infallibly in a subject is very, very wrong.
Think about it a bit.
"No you think about it a bit!!11"
Well, at least I tried...
Nice, resort to personal attacks when someone disagrees with you.
I don't have a division symbol on my KB, so I assumed you were intelligent enough to know I was referring to the OP's way of expressing it as opposed to the second example. I have added the explanation for you in the relevant post.
Something I clarified later anyway in the second post you only partially quoted......
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As much as I intensely dislike purposefully obtuse simultaneously infallible and unprovable theories too, that's another question for another day.
I refer you to the above post.
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Not only that, that simplification was wrong even when Pluto was a planet, as sometimes it was closer to the sun than Neptune.
Soldato
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Lol @ split opinions
Comes to think of it, I am not sure myself either
Comes to think of it, I am not sure myself either
Soldato
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You just ran through exactly the same thing twice but got different answers.
And which 'OP' are you referring to?
Thread title: 6÷2(1+2)
Poll question: 6/2(1+2)
Associate
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6/2(1+2)
6/2(3)
3(3)
=9
You do the parenthesis first, then the divisions/multiplications (of course division/multiplication has equal precedence so is read left to right). How can it be anything else?
Yes, but only because the English word implies a new grouping:
6 divided 2(1+2)
6 divided by the result of 2(1+2)
6(2(1+2)) = 1.
6/2(3)
3(3)
=9
You do the parenthesis first, then the divisions/multiplications (of course division/multiplication has equal precedence so is read left to right). How can it be anything else?
Yes, but only because the English word implies a new grouping:
6 divided 2(1+2)
6 divided by the result of 2(1+2)
6(2(1+2)) = 1.
I just want to post that the answer is 9, if only by convention.
Try asking anybody who does any scientific programming what 6/2*3 evaluates to and they will tell you 9.
If there was any freedom in things like this vast amounts of software would simply cease to function.
Try asking anybody who does any scientific programming what 6/2*3 evaluates to and they will tell you 9.
If there was any freedom in things like this vast amounts of software would simply cease to function.
Oh go on, one more post...
The coefficient of a parenthesis should be done straight after the parenthesis itself AFAIWT
They can both be interpretted differently, but the latter suggests an answer of 1 more because it implies that 2(1+2) is a denominator, when it isn't necessarily.
Read the post you quoted second in which it is clarified:
How do you get the division symbol on your KB?
Soldato
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My point is and always has been that the "solutions" arriving at 1 are wrong, because they are not following the standard order of operations.
If you want to throw that out of the window and ignore the fact that it is how expressions should be processed, then fine - you're right, it is ambiguous.
But if you aren't ignorant about the standard order of operations, the solution isn't ambiguous.
It is like you are asking me to 'accept' that people have been taught that electrons flow 'forwards' through a circuit, or that electrons 'flow' at all, and that I should pander to this.
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