this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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[–] Limitless_screaming@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago (4 children)

My Casio calculators get this wrong, even the newer ones. BTW the correct answer is 16, right?

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

the correct answer is 16, right?

No, the correct answer is 1.

[–] KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Yes

8 / 2 (2+2)

8 / 2 (4)

4 (4)

16

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

No

8 / 2 (2+2)

8 / 2 (4)

8 / 8

1

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

No. Order of operations is left to right, not right to left. 1 is wrong.

[–] 50MYT@aussie.zone 1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Pemdas.

Multiplication comes before division.

1 is the correct answer.

[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

That's wrong. Multiplication and division have equal precedence, same as addition and subtraction. You do them left to right. PEMDAS could be rewritten like PE(MD)(AS). After parentheses and exponents, it"s Multiplication and division together, then addition and subtraction together. They also teach BODMAS some places, which is "brackets, order, division and multiplication, addition and subtraction" Despite reversing the division and multiplication, it doesn't change the order of operations. They have the same priority, so they are just done left to right. PEMDAS and BODMAS are the different shorthand for the same order of operations.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago

1 is the correct answer, but it's because Brackets comes before Division - there is no Multiplication in this problem.

[–] 0ops@lemm.ee 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's an argument to be made that implicit multiplication comes before division, resulting in the answer 1, but all multiplication? That's wrong, full-stop. You calculate (explicit) multiplication and division in one step, left to right. Reason being that division is technically just multiplying by the reciprocal.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago

Order of operations is left to right

Order of operations is BEDMAS, THEN left to right within each operator.

1 is wrong

1 is the only correct answer.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes

No.

8 / 2 (4) 8/(2x4) 8/8 1

[–] Th0rgue@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Depends on the system you use. Most common system worldwide and in the academic circles (the oldest of the two) has 1 as the answer.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Depends on the system you use

There are no other systems - only people who are following the actual rules of Maths and those who aren't. And yes, 1 is the correct answer

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)
  • 16 is the right answer if you use PEMDAS only: (8 ÷ 2) × (2 + 2)
  • 1 is the right answer if you use implicit/explicit with PEMDAS: 8 ÷ (2 × (2 + 2))
  • both are correct answers (as in if you don’t put in extra parentheses to reduce ambiguity, you should expect expect either answer)
  • this is also one of the reasons why postfix and prefix notations have an advantage over infix notation
    • postfix (HP, RPN, Forth): 2 2 + 8 2 ÷ × .
    • prefix (Lisp): (× (÷ 8 2) (+ 2 2))
[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

16 is the right answer if you use PEMDAS only: (8 ÷ 2) × (2 + 2)

You added brackets and changed the answer. 2(2+2) is a single term, and if you break it up then you change the answer (because now the (2+2) is in the numerator instead of in the denominator).

1 is the right answer

The only right answer

both are correct answers

Nope, 1 is the only correct answer.

this is also one of the reasons why postfix and prefix notations have an advantage over infix notation

Except they don't. This isn't a notation problem, it's a people don't remember the rules of Maths problem.

[–] brian@programming.dev 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

prefix notation doesn't need parentheses either though, at least in this case. lisp uses them for readability and to get multiple arity operators. infix doesn't have any ambiguity either if you parenthesize all operations like that.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

infix doesn’t have any ambiguity either if you parenthesize all operations like that

There isn't any ambiguity even if you don't.