A Call For Humor!

[KellenVancouver]

This is audio Science review, not primary school.
Without brackets/parentheses, it is incomplete. Would you ever write a formula like that?

Certainly. It is called "order of operations" in mathematics and is standing procedure worldwide. Multiplication always precedes addition. Simple.

 

[Ifrit]

Yes it is worldwide. Maybe UK is an exception of the mathematics? Hmmm

 

[KellenVancouver]

It isn't worldwide.
could be a US thing, that's probably why it is assumed that it is worldwide by US!
Bottom line, it is a lazy excuse for those who practice it. In scientific circles it has no place.

Not to belabor the point, but order of operations originated in the 17th century. In Europe. The United States did not become a country until the 18th century.

 

[Blumlein 88]

It isn't worldwide.
could be a US thing, that's probably why it is assumed that it is worldwide by US!
Bottom line, it is a lazy excuse for those who practice it. In scientific circles it has no place.

Where in the world is it not the way math is taught? Who teaches math without teaching order of operations?

 

[KellenVancouver]

 

[Ken Tajalli]

Where in the world is it not the way math is taught? Who teaches math without teaching order of operations?

History and Background

https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/ambiguity/index.html

Ambiguous, open to debate and lazy. Use parentheses brackets, or keep arguing.

 

[KellenVancouver]

 

[KellenVancouver]

 

[sergeauckland]

History and Background

https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/ambiguity/index.html

Ambiguous, open to debate and lazy. Use parentheses brackets, or keep arguing.

On the second one, I got 18/5 so neither of the two 'conventions'. In my schooling, (3 maths A levels, plus physics and chemistry) and subsequent degree, never once came across PEMDAS or the other one. We were taught always to use brackets to avoid ambiguity.

S

 

[Blumlein 88]

History and Background

https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/ambiguity/index.html

Ambiguous, open to debate and lazy. Use parentheses brackets, or keep arguing.

I was taught the matter in grade school. It made sense, never used any memory trick. Was expected to know and use it all thru my education including engineering at a university. Worked my entire career and it was always the convention. No arguing and no using brackets when not needed. I'm an old part of the on going evolution as the final sentence in your first link from a 23 year old article stated it.

I mean there was Newton's notation for calculus that never caught on the way the notation from Leibniz did. One could consider this an ongoing unsettled matter too I suppose. I've never seen anyone using fluxions and fluents in calculus. Before now never ran across anyone asking for brackets at all times rather than just knowing the order of operations. Guess I learned something early in the new year.

Cheers!

 

[Ken Tajalli]

I was taught the matter in grade school. It made sense, never used any memory trick. Was expected to know and use it all thru my education including engineering at a university. Worked my entire career and it was always the convention. No arguing and no using brackets when not needed. I'm an old part of the on going evolution as the final sentence in your first link from a 23 year old article stated it.

I mean there was Newton's notation for calculus that never caught on the way the notation from Leibniz did. One could consider this an ongoing unsettled matter too I suppose. I've never seen anyone using fluxions and fluents in calculus. Before now never ran across anyone asking for brackets at all times rather than just knowing the order of operations. Guess I learned something early in the new year.

Cheers!

And cheers to you too. That was big of you.
happy new year to everyone, specially to you.

On the second one, I got 18/5 so neither of the two 'conventions'. In my schooling, (3 maths A levels, plus physics and chemistry) and subsequent degree, never once came across PEMDAS or the other one. We were taught always to use brackets to avoid ambiguity.

3 Maths A levels? I got two (pure & applied). wasn't even aware of a third. I got physics too. Even remember my grades! but only because it was BBC.

 

[-Matt-]

Pure, mechanics, statistics?

I prefer brackets. Each time I find an ambiguous equation in a paper I have to plug in numbers to check that the author followed convention, which wastes time.

Happy new year all.

 

[mhardy6647]

Certainly. It is called "order of operations" in mathematics and is standing procedure worldwide. Multiplication always precedes addition. Simple.

View attachment 338672​

I almost didn't realize that these two posts went together...

 

[Spkrdctr]

Pure, mechanics, statistics?

I prefer brackets. Each time I find an ambiguous equation in a paper I have to plug in numbers to check that the author followed convention, which wastes time.

Happy new year all.

You guys are obviously not reading MAD magazine. Step up in quality to MAD!

 

[Flaesh]

[Maybe it would be more correct to post in the rugs thread]

 

[mhardy6647]

View attachment 338674​

Shared this with Mrs. H. Her response: Doesn't the suffix "-ous" mean something, too? Yes, said I, it means "full of".
I am now looking into the etymology of preposterous*.

EDIT: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/preposterous
Dude.

The familiar expression "putting the cart before the horse" comes very close to the literal sense of the word preposterous. The Romans formed their Latin adjective praeposterus from prae-, meaning "before," and posterus, meaning "following." They at first used it to mean "having that first which ought to be last," like having a cart ahead of the horse that is pulling it. Praeposterus was used to describe something that was out of the normal or logical order or position.

Dammit! Learned something. Again! Curses!
_________________
* Preposterous as that may seem.

 

[5-pot-fan]

Very little maths here, and often no understanding, but if the order of operations is indeed multiplication before addition, should the result not be the equivalent of:
2 + (2x4) = 10 ?
Not looking to disrespect anyone, especially at the beginning of a New Year, but would like to know how to answer this without using parentheses?
I know I must be wrong as 10 is not even offered as an answer in the test ....

 

[mhardy6647]

So.... bass-ackwards is a synonym for preposterous.

 

[mhardy6647]

Very little maths here, and often no understanding, but if the order of operations is indeed multiplication before addition, should the result not be the equivalent of:
2 + (2x4) = 10 ?
Not looking to disrespect anyone, especially at the beginning of a New Year, but would like to know how to answer this without using parentheses?
I know I must be wrong as 10 is not even offered as an answer in the test ....

I think you're right. I have been quite puzzled by this whole "order of operations" leitmotif.

 

[Waxx]