Is the circus in town?
Poll: 6÷2(1+2)
- Thread starter Barks
- Start date
Is the circus in town?
Its not arrogance - its just a simple expression with an operator that has a standard use. There is only one answer, the operator has a use, the answer is 9.... I can see why some people have trouble understanding, but they're still wrong.
Just out of interest, what are your qualifications in maths?
There aren't two possible questions if you consider ÷ to be defined as standard....
÷ is confusing but isn't open to interpretation much as Gambitt etc.. might like to believe and a simple problem like this isn't really a subject for debate nor is stating the answer 'arrogant'
Yeah the '÷' symbol is never used in higher education maths and personally I think it should be removed from the education system as it confuses things (evidently lol)
So the problem is converting it to 'real life' maths and to do that you HAVE to make an assumption of where brackets should be, so there is no right answer, just an assumed right answer.
You don't have to make an assumption - the operator is already defined - it isn't as though '÷' never existed prior to this thread
1÷2*3 is the same as (1÷2)*3
it isn't the same as 1÷(2*3)
the divisor is simply the next term on the right
Again the entire thread is an argument over the use of ÷ or / to represent division which have been used already for many decades.
Where is this definition please? Link to the axiom?
Also, you didn't answer the question about your mathematical qualifications - did you intentionally ignore that one?
I'm assuming that people who are arguing that it is ambiguous or open to interpretation have never coded anything. Whilst it is certainly more readable and less likely to confuse with an extra set of parenthesis added it doesn't stop it from having a single definition and indeed answer without the extra parenthesis.
This.
Let's look again at 9/3/3 (I don't have the division symbol and I can't be arsed to use charmap
)The question is "what is 9 divided by 3 divided by 3". You have to start with 9, read left to right and therefore the answer is 1. The people who say "9" are answering the following question:
"what is 9/x where x=3/3". It's not what was written.
With 6/2(1+2) it's pretty much the same.
"what is 6 divided by 2 multiplied by x where x=1+2."
You have to answer "9" because you have to start with 6 and read left to right.
1 is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong!
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It's not about code it's how you would interpret it in real life.
I could write a code that calculated the answer to be 1, that doesn't mean it is the correct answer.
Thats the problem, as it stands the equation is junk, there is no answer. Its possible to correct it to a standard for the notation format which comes out as 9, there is no standard to correct it to a version that comes out as 1 as an equation written in the format used - you need to insert an extra pair of brackets that aren't indicated in the original at all - so you might as well just add in any random operator if your gonna do that and make whatever of it you want.
Why?
I've done some coding in my time, and I do lots of Excel work day to day. I'd always use brackets to make things clear to myself and to others, not least because it's considerably easier to read than if you have to interpret it using bidmas every time.
I'm just finishing a math's degree in which I have used matlab for mathematical coding, but yeah I don't know any coding languages as such (although I would quite like to learn as I was messing around with some javascript the other day and found it quite fun lol)
I still think your wrong though, even from a coding point of view, because different calculators have produced two different results from the same equation, implying there isn't one globally recognised rule for this type of equation.
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/Thread
Read the following sentence:
"Start at the left and finish at the right."
Did you:
a) read "start" first
b) read "finish" first
c) read "pancake" over and over
?
If you want to change the order of reading/calculation, you have two options:
1) parenthesis
6/(2(1+2))
2) proper notation
6
------
2(1+2)
Otherwise you read left to right. Why wouldn't you?
There is some variation perhaps but most will answer 9
Without wanting to side to much with the mad hatter fellow - order of operations is fairly conventional and the '/' will (without the use of further parenthesis) apply to the 2 but not to the rest of the right hand side.
