Can you do this simple maths problem?

[FriendlyFire]

48÷2(9+3) = ?

you do the brackets first so 49/2*(12)
then left to right
49/2 = 24.5
24.5 * 12 = 294

uhhh what the ???
I failed :O

48 / 2 * (9+3)
48 / 2 * 12
48 / 2 = 24
24 * 12 = 288

bidmas

Blah forgotten about that.
been so long huh

 

[Quackers]

FF it is 48 not 49. you divided 49.

 

[Defiant47]

Therefore we have...

48 ÷ 2 x (3+9)
48 ÷ 2 x 12
24 x 12
288

There's your mistake. The equation is not 48 / 2 * (3+9). The equation is 48 / 2(3+9). There is no multiplying sign between 2 and (3+9).

48 / 2 * (3+9) = 288
48 / 2(3+9) = 2

Comprendé?


Also, this bears repeating:

What you posted in that image is completely irrelevant to anything in this thread. It does not suggest anything relevant to the OP's question or anything I or anyone else besides you on this thread have said. (Can't speak for you if you meant to say something else and didn't) And for your own personal crusade of trying to prove different uses of the obelus or solidus, it also has nothing to do with that.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Uhhh Sleep deperavation from playing WOTs until 2am in the morning then getting up again @ 8am for work the same day. >_<

 

[Sveon]

why are you trying to solve this?

 

[amadeus]

There's a new one for you all.

 

[Truronian]

What you posted in that image is completely irrelevant to anything in this thread. It does not suggest anything relevant to the OP's question or anything I or anyone else besides you on this thread have said. (Can't speak for you if you meant to say something else and didn't) And for your own personal crusade of trying to prove different uses of the obelus or solidus, it also has nothing to do with that.

Lets recap:

I say that the answer is 288 because there is a common convention when dealing with such calculations (that involve obeli), and the links I provided (including the link to the national strategies) are evidence of this.

You say the answer is 2 because of a convention when dealing with similar calculations involving solidi, and you have similarly provided sources that back this up.

Ergo there exist two different conventions when dealing with order of operations (hence the argument about the two different answers). Given that the convention seen most commonly with obeli gives the answer of 288, I think it is only fair to consider this the correct answer. I certainly think any claims towards the answer definitely being 2 are nonsense, as are any claims that one convention is in some way better than another.

There's your mistake. The equation is not 48 / 2 * (3+9). The equation is 48 / 2(3+9). There is no multiplying sign between 2 and (3+9).

48 / 2 * (3+9) = 288
48 / 2(3+9) = 2

Comprendé?

Multiplication is implicit.

 

[Earthling]

Not a single one of the sources you listed are evidence of what you claim. My argument has effectively NOTHING TO DO WITH the use of the obelus or solidus, and you simply don't understand it. You haven't even managed to provide a source of your own indicating the difference between the obelus and solidus you claim either, you just posted some things that are firstly not relevant to the OP's question, and secondly don't illustrate a difference between the obelus and solidus.

 

[azzaman333]

My TI-89 says 288, so I'll go with that. Either way, it's a stupidly ambiguous question.

 

[Truronian]

Not a single one of the sources you listed are evidence of what you claim. My argument has effectively NOTHING TO DO WITH the use of the obelus or solidus, and you simply don't understand it. You haven't even managed to provide a source of your own indicating the difference between the obelus and solidus you claim either, you just posted some things that are firstly not relevant to the OP's question, and secondly don't illustrate a difference between the obelus and solidus.

You have an argument?

 

[Earthling]

Between the two of us, I'm the only one who has posted any sort of relevant evidence.

 

[Truronian]

Between the two of us, I'm the only one who has posted any sort of relevant evidence.

Indeed, my evidence has been a lot more than merely sort of relevant.

 

[Earthling]

You have posted nothing that suggests even the merest bit of evidence of any convention you claim. What you posted, is not evidence towards anything in this thread. Everything I've posted is not only relevant, it's correct.

 

[Truronian]

You have posted nothing that suggests even the merest bit of evidence of any convention you claim. What you posted, is not evidence towards anything in this thread. Everything I've posted is not only relevant, it's correct.

Believe what you will; I leave you with a recommendation not to take any secondary school mathematics exams in the UK. You will drop marks.

 

[Earthling]

I understand you may be having trouble understanding children's educational standards in your country, but that's not a problem for me.

 

[Formaldehyde]

This thread is still ongoing?!?

It's a simple matter of operator precedence and left associativity:

Summary

There are five arithmetic operators: ^, *, /, +, and -.

Exponentiation (^) is at the highest level of precedence, multiplication (*) and division (/) are at a lower level of precedence, and addition (+) and subtraction (-) are at an even lower level of precedence.

In the absence of parentheses, operators at a higher level of precedence are performed before operators at a lower level of precedence.

In the absence of parentheses, multiplication and division are performed from left to right, as are addition and subtraction.

Parentheses can be used to explicitly control the order of evaluation of an expression.

 

[SG-17]

The way I was taught in high school was that 48/2(9+3) = 2.

 

[Formaldehyde]

48 ÷ 2 ( 9 + 3 )
48 2 ÷ 9 3 +
if it can't be evaluated as a postfix expression, it's not worth evaluating

Only you are missing the last operand:

48 2 ÷ 9 3 + *

which evaluates to 288.

 

[KMRblue1027]

You do the problem like this

1:X=48/2(9+3)
2:X=48/2(12)
3:X=24(12)
4:X=288

It's simple order of operations. First due everything in (). Then Exponents (None in the problem). Then multiplication and division from left to right. Then addition and subtraction from left to right.

Where are you getting 2 from anyway?

 

[Formaldehyde]

They apparently think that the multiplier and divisor operands are on different precedence levels, or they don't know about left associativity. It has to be one or the other.