Maths won't work correctly unless you have an order in which to do things.
230 - 220 x 0.5
- Thread starter danlightbulb
- Start date
Maths won't work correctly unless you have an order in which to do things.
How so. I'm genuinely curious why 1+1*5*10+20/2 can't be 60?
Who reasoning is it that it's should be in a weird order.
Why does it matter that the actual answer is 61..
Chatgptt says this
BODMAS (Brackets, Orders, Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction) is a convention—a shared rule so everyone gets the same answer from the same expression.
Without it, expressions become ambiguous. For example:
8 + 2 × 3
Left-to-right only → (8 + 2) × 3 = 30
With BODMAS → 8 + (2 × 3) = 14
Two different answers from the same line—that’s a problem. BODMAS removes that ambiguity.
But there was no ambiguity to begin with. BODMAS created it by having a different answer
I suppose I'm asking a pointless question because it's obviously for a reason beyond my tiny brain but I've always hated it and think it's difficult because I can never remember the order or what BODMAS stands for.
I guess my math brain has always pressed the equals button after every number 1+1=2*5=10*10=100+2=120/2=60
Who reasoning is it that it's should be in a weird order.
Why does it matter that the actual answer is 61..
Chatgptt says this
BODMAS (Brackets, Orders, Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction) is a convention—a shared rule so everyone gets the same answer from the same expression.
Without it, expressions become ambiguous. For example:
8 + 2 × 3
Left-to-right only → (8 + 2) × 3 = 30
With BODMAS → 8 + (2 × 3) = 14
Two different answers from the same line—that’s a problem. BODMAS removes that ambiguity.
But there was no ambiguity to begin with. BODMAS created it by having a different answer
I suppose I'm asking a pointless question because it's obviously for a reason beyond my tiny brain but I've always hated it and think it's difficult because I can never remember the order or what BODMAS stands for.
I guess my math brain has always pressed the equals button after every number 1+1=2*5=10*10=100+2=120/2=60
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Similarly i passed Maths O level grade 2 in 1968. BODMAS not only works in numerical mathematics but also the physical sciences where applied maths and algebraic logic works.
I am fairly sure that the mathematicians of mesopotamia, egypt, india and greece all used the rules we use today even if they are somewhat expanded today. Euclidean geometry and trigonometry works then as it does now.
I still have the cheap solar battery powered Casio fx85 that i used for the last few years as a civil engineer. My first calculator was a Sinclair purchased after i left school and my most expensive was a hewlett packard programmable some years later
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We hand calced our way to the moon in in the nineteen sixties using BODMAS.
Lets take a simple example
2 x (3 + 4) I think you will be happy that this equals (3 + 4) x 2
So if 2 x (3 + 4) = (3 + 4) x 2
Expand the brackets
2 x 3 + 2 x 4 = 3 x 2 + 4 x 2
Now, unless multiplication takes precedence over addition, you won't get the same answer.