Attention math geeks

[DevilishWon]

Damn you for bringing the stench of math to the board

 

[sabresfaninthesouth]

I always remembered it that the stuff inside the parentheses took precedent, then multiplication and division with equal priority, then addition or subtraction with equal priority (with exponents coming between parentheses and multiplication and division).

And when you had two items of equal priority - the multiplication and division in this case - that you performed the functions from left to right, which would give the 288.

 

[Darkstone42]

288 and 2 are both correct because the problem is expressed ambiguously.

The only person in the wrong is the person who wrote the problem.

 

[dboy97]

So a couple of friends are arguing over the following problem and they came to me to tell them who was right but I'm not sure.

48 / 2 (9+3)

The "/" is meant to be an actual division sign so not everything that follows is part of the denominator.

At first I was thinking the answer was 288 but now I'm thinking it is 2. I'm thinking that the absense of the implied multiplication sign means you multiply the bracket by 2 before going from right to left. Anyone know the rule on this?

It depends on how it was written. I tend to agree with the 288 that you say if it was written as:

48
---- (9+3), but if it is a simple division sign 48 DIV 2 (9+3) it is 2.
2

By my reading of the first quote in bold the second in bold is the way it should be written therefore 288 is the answer. The way it is written originally is poor but it to be two it would need to be as follows in order to get 2.
48
-------
2(9+3)

If you enter it in a calculator as originally typed without adding extra parenthesis you will get 288.

 

[Vadered]

288 and 2 are both correct because the problem is expressed ambiguously.

The only person in the wrong is the person who wrote the problem.

100% agreement.

It's like the sentence "Sidney Crosby ran into a David Boudia right before he took a dive."

It's not clear who the word "he" is referring to in this context. Your homework assignment is to rewrite the sentence so that it is clear.

 

[juliansteed]

By my reading of the first quote in bold the second in bold is the way it should be written therefore 288 is the answer. The way it is written originally is poor but it to be two it would need to be as follows in order to get 2.
48
-------
2(9+3)

If you enter it in a calculator as originally typed without adding extra parenthesis you will get 288.

Yeah the way I worded it originally I should have said "not everything that follows is necessarily part of the denominator" instead of simply saying that it wasn't. I was trying to describe the exact problem the best I could before someone showed me how to do the "÷". It's so much easier to show how vague the question is that way.

 

[Darkstone42]

100% agreement.

It's like the sentence "Sidney Crosby ran into a David Boudia right before he took a dive."

It's not clear who the word "he" is referring to in this context. Your homework assignment is to rewrite the sentence so that it is clear.

Don't even get me started on ambiguous pronoun references/poorly defined antecedents!

 

[Bizzle McDizzle]

288 and 2 are both correct because the problem is expressed ambiguously.

The only person in the wrong is the person who wrote the problem.

this debate has been going around for years and years



48÷2(9+3) = ? | Know Your Meme

 

[Bizzle McDizzle]

just google

"48 ÷ 2 (9+3)"

and it goes on forever

 

[Bizzle McDizzle]

 

[Bizzle McDizzle]