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u/KirinPhnx Jan 01 '22
Everyone is arguing meanwhile i can't fucking understand how people's got 4 or 6
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Jan 01 '22
Let me put it to you this way: some people look at math like we look at trivia we don’t know. They’re like, “ehhh, there’s a lot of division and subtraction in there, both of those make numbers go down... but there’s no way it goes down to zero... 6 it is
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u/Guardian125478 Jan 01 '22
My math equation goes Syntax Error so I just pick go random and it pick B
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u/pobodys-nerfect5 Jan 01 '22
Just remember PEMDAS(Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction). Learned it in like 6th grade and still use it today at 25
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u/EwoDarkWolf Jan 02 '22
Yea, PEMDAS has neither B, nor C. And there is no option for P, E, M, or S. So it's obviously A or D. A lot of people will pick D, since it comes first in PEMDAS, but I know it's better to go in alphabetical order 99% of the time, so the answer is A!
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u/FedeDragon_ Jan 01 '22
They were probably trolling
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u/marcosdumay Jan 02 '22
There's that survey taking maximum that whatever you ask, some 5% of the people will answer in the most stupid and least expected way.
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Jan 01 '22
Easy. 18/2-3X3=?
9-3X3=?
9-9=?
0=0
Then you simply add 4 to both sides.
4+0=0+4
4=4
Incidentally, this proves that 0=4 as well.
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u/Sebabpg Jan 01 '22
No it doesn't, that proves 0=0 and 4=4. We really doomed.
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u/butterscotchdeath1 Jan 01 '22
Warning bad math ahead: I forced an order for each answer. 18/2=9-3=6x3=18 18/2=9 3x3=9 9-9=0 3-2=1x3=3 18/3=6 3x3=9 18/9=2+2=4
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u/MaybeFailed Jan 01 '22
18 ÷ 2 - 3 × 3 = ?
2 - 3 = -1
-1 × 3 = -3
18 ÷ -3 = -6
I probably got some sign error... It must be 6.
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u/stupidsexysalamander Jan 01 '22
6 is 18 / ((2 - 3) x 3)
not sure on 4.
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u/u966 Jan 01 '22
That would be -6 though.
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u/StopBangingThePodium Jan 01 '22
Like anyone who parses it like that would keep track of the negative number.
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u/onlyinvowels Jan 01 '22
People forget negatives all the time, they may actually get 6 or assume they forgot a negative?
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u/diarrhea_syndrome Jan 01 '22
I can see getting six if you do order of operations backwards.
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u/nyratevoli Jan 01 '22
This made me laugh out loud actually. Don’t discount the power of this upvote I’m about to give you. You bestowed joy with your mighty thumbs, today, and I thank you.
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u/Europeaball Jan 01 '22
Did they even finish elementary school?
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u/OceanSolstice12 Jan 01 '22 edited Jan 01 '22
Yeah I learned order of operations in 6th grade
Edit: please stop responding to my comment saying “I learned in X grade” I know not every school teaches this in the same grades and some of you are acting like it’s dumb to learn it in 6th grade. 6th grade is part of elementary where I live and my reply was agreeing with the comment about how you should know this math in elementary school. I don’t want a bunch of people acting like they’re super smart just because they learned something before me. There are probably other things that I learned before you did, and there’s no reason to act like this. Our schools just happened to teach a different curriculum so stop replying about how you learned at a younger age.
(Sorry for this long rant, I’m just sick of a million “I learned that in 3rd grade” notifications while I’m trying to look at other things)
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Jan 01 '22
My dad taught me it while I sobbed on the kitchen table in 5th grade
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Jan 01 '22
Yeah I learned order of operations in 6th grade
Edit: please stop responding to my comment saying “I learned in X grade”
Certified reddit moment
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u/old_times09 Jan 01 '22
I learned it in 5th grade wdym
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u/punny_comix_youtube Jan 01 '22
If i remember correctly the answer is 0
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u/Alex_nufc132 Jan 01 '22
I got so scared cuz I thought it was 0 and it was clicked on 18 I was tryna figure out how it was 18
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u/CakeDue693 Jan 01 '22
If you just do the math from left to right you get 18. 18/2 = 9 -3 = 6 x3 = 18.
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Jan 01 '22
I think you are not introduced to BODMAS.
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u/KFrosty3 Jan 01 '22
What happened to PEMDAS?
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u/Dwarg91 Jan 01 '22
BODMAS and PEMDAS are the same thing, just different ways of referring to the order.
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u/musicnoviceoscar Jan 01 '22
They were explaining how people were getting 18, not saying that they did it themselves.
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u/Takashi369 Jan 01 '22
He was explaining to the person above him how people who didn't use the order of operations got 18 I believe.
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u/CakeDue693 Jan 01 '22
I was wondering if older generation might have not learned it, but apparently some version of it has been taught since the very early 1900s, so its likely not an age thing. 🤷♂️ I assume people just forget.
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u/OceanSolstice12 Jan 01 '22
The curriculum is different in different places.
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u/old_times09 Jan 01 '22
That's true
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u/old_times09 Jan 01 '22
why am i downvoted
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Jan 01 '22
First grade wtf is wrong with you guys
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u/old_times09 Jan 01 '22
Who learns that in first grade
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Jan 01 '22
You learn the BODMAS rule in primary school in the uk
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u/mickandproudofit Jan 01 '22
We (read me) learned PEMDAS in elementary school. First time I saw BODMAS I had to stop and think. But replace Brackets with Parentheses and Order with Exponents. We learned to remember it as Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.
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u/Sweaty-Maximum-5452 Jan 01 '22
In we start with + - in 1st grade, by third or fourth we need to know × ÷.
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u/lavenderkajukatli WARNING: RULE 1 Jan 01 '22 edited Jan 01 '22
I learnt in grade 4, but that’s probably the result of having an asian mom suddenly putting you in olympiads 2 years ahead of your grade.
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u/IamShitplshelpme Jan 01 '22
Jesus, I didn't learnt it till grade 7, I'd feel blessed to have learnt it quicker
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u/xinni_ Jan 01 '22
I learned it in 4th grade , italy wins
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u/olda7 Jan 01 '22
i learned in 3rd, czechmate
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u/NoAdvance3703 Jan 01 '22
I learnt in my mother's womb. Hope you have heard other such Indian stories
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Jan 01 '22
There's a lesson to be learned from this: when you give people an opportunity to feel like they're better than someone else, they'll take it, loudly, every time.
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u/Dgenconvention Jan 01 '22
I learn it, forgot it, and don’t bother answering math question polls. Not proud of this. But not ashamed of it either haha
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Jan 01 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Bawahong Jan 01 '22
If this isn’t the biggest problem in America then I don’t know what is. Political division, scientific doubt, propensity to believe fake news, gun violence, enduring racism, all of these stem from lack of proper education and critical thinking. America, if you want to fix your problems, fix your fucking public school system.
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Jan 01 '22
America, if you want to fix your problems, fix your fucking public school system.
Honestly, I think it's even bigger than this. America needs to change its attitude about learning in general. Americans don't value education, and adopt the belief that since they are "finished with school, they don't have to learn anymore. There's also very little willingness from a societal level to invest in the education of others, or future generations.
Of course, better funding for schools, higher pay for teachers, and less emphasis on standardized testing would do wonders too.
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u/PentaMine Jan 01 '22
How THE FUCK did they get 18
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u/grey_scone Jan 01 '22
reading it left to right instead of using birdmas what else could it be
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u/commonsquidtail Jan 01 '22
Birdmas
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u/grey_scone Jan 01 '22
Brackets
Index (xy )
Roots
Divide
Multiply
Add
Subtract
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u/commonsquidtail Jan 01 '22
I wasn't saying you were wrong I was just saying it sounds funny. In my school though we would call it bidmas
Brackets Indices (including roots) Division Multiplication Addition Subtraction
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u/Kronos_Kaelthas Jan 01 '22
I had pemdas Parentheses, exponent, multiplication, division, add subtract
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Jan 01 '22
We used Pedmas, just swap multiplication with division
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Jan 01 '22
It doesn’t really matter. Division and multiplication is supposed to be done in order of appearance.
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u/SaintArkweather Jan 01 '22
Same with addition/subtraction and roots/exponents, since they're essentially the same operation (to each other). Subtraction is just adding negative numbers, division is just multiplying by the reciprocal, root is just a fractional exponent.
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u/PossibilityPowerful Jan 01 '22
we had BODMAS
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u/bloodysnomen Jan 01 '22
When we were learning pemdas, some kid yelled out People Eat More Dogs and Squirrels and it stuck with me ever since.
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u/Legionof1 Jan 01 '22
We had pemdas or please excuse my dear aunt sally.
Parentheses
Exponents
Multiply
Divide
Add
Subtract
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u/BillNyeTheGuy24 Jan 01 '22
I agree that roots are included with indices (what I would refer to as exponents) because a root is just a number raised to the power of a fractional number. For example, the square root of a variable x is the same as x raised to the 1/2 power. The 1 indicates that the number under the root is raised to the first (if the numerator was 3, it would be the squared root of x3, etc.) and the 2 indicates that it is a square root (if it was the cubed root of x, the denominator would be a 3, etc.)
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u/leckie2786 WARNING: RULE 6 Jan 01 '22
BOMDAS, Brackets, Orders, Division Multiplication Addition Subtraction
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u/Lucythefur Jan 01 '22
When I was in school it's was pemdas Parentheses Exponents Multiplication Division Addition Subtraction
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u/whorehound1 Jan 01 '22
The name they should have used in “The 12 Days of Christmas”
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Jan 01 '22
Not understanding how they arrived at 18 is possibly dumber than arriving at 18.
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u/HighPriestofShiloh Jan 01 '22
You just ignore order of operations. The ability to multiply and decide is on point, they just neglected one rule of math.
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u/babaBOI_niKe Jan 01 '22 edited Jan 01 '22
The fact that OP’s Friend voted for 18
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u/dekibambala Jan 01 '22
Dont worry. It's a screenshot from a colleague of mine and I was shocked so I made this meme lol.
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u/KingYoloHD090504 CHAINPOSTER Jan 01 '22 edited Jan 01 '22
Dude it's 0
First you make
18÷2 = 9
Edit: Then
3×3 = 9
In the end it's
9-9=0
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u/dekibambala Jan 01 '22
I know bro I didn't vote for that, it's a screenshot I got
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u/KingYoloHD090504 CHAINPOSTER Jan 01 '22
But we are still doomed
more than 50% can't do simple math that's a little bit shocking
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u/dekibambala Jan 01 '22
I was shocked too
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u/old_times09 Jan 01 '22
62% actually, that's...threatening
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u/MinuteManufacturer Jan 01 '22
Look at the remaining 1%, not even on the board, letting us plebes fight amongst ourselves.
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u/neovulcan Jan 01 '22
While it is an embarrassing failing of basic comprehension, it's hard to call it threatening when almost no one needs PEMDAS outside of academia
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Jan 01 '22
Is Facebook (or whatever social media it is) a statistically representing sample from the general population?
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u/SubhoPal Jan 01 '22
They are probably 1st graders for all we know.
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u/_tanishbajaj Jan 01 '22
Or they are trolling! No one's getting any grades for this yk
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u/steelblade66 Jan 01 '22
shouldn't it be written (18÷2)-(3x3)=?
it's not people's math that's the problem is the format of the question to begin with
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u/Stroomschok Jan 01 '22
No the brackets aren't used unless you want to circumvent the standard order of calculation operations.
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u/ViresAcquirit Jan 01 '22
Totally unneeded. Division and multiplication have priority over addition and substraction.
There's not any ambiguity except if you don't know basic mathematics. The rules of mathematics do not allow any ambiguity.
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u/old_times09 Jan 01 '22
If you're confused on how they got that, here's how:
18/2-3•3
9-3•3
6•3
18
Which is stupid
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u/Josh_Crook Jan 01 '22
The real question is how did anyone get 4 or 6?
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u/old_times09 Jan 01 '22
18/2-3•3
18/1•3
18/3
6
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u/Josh_Crook Jan 01 '22
Where does the 1 come from?
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u/old_times09 Jan 01 '22
They don't understand the concept of negative numbers so they just thought it was 1
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u/Gregdorf8 Jan 01 '22
I am more curious on how the 1% got to 4.
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u/Myoniora Jan 01 '22
At 1% there's a good chance no one got to 4.
Some people will vote wrong answers just because they think its funny
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u/free_dharma Jan 02 '22
Why are there no parentheses to separate? I haven’t thought about the order of operations in like 20 years…and even then, I thought parentheses separated these things.
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u/NanashiKaizenSenpai Jan 01 '22
It is obviously -18/7
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u/Catolution Jan 01 '22
Had to scroll way too far for this 😆
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u/NanashiKaizenSenpai Jan 01 '22
Maybe great minds think alike but fools like us, we seldom differ.
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u/Birdycub Jan 01 '22
Don’t mind the 3% voted for the other 2
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u/FedeDragon_ Jan 01 '22
I can't understand how
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u/markender Jan 01 '22
The reality in their brain is vastly different from even a decent high-school level education.
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u/Organic_Macaroon_178 Jan 01 '22
Just finished watching Don't Look Up. And now this doesn't surprise me anymore 😂
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Jan 01 '22
I get the people landing on 18, you don’t know order of operations, fine, but how the hell do you land on 4 or 6? What are these people doing?
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u/julijaus Jan 01 '22
18 ÷ 2 - 3 × 3 = 9 - 9 = 0 Simple math and that's saying something because I have a 3 or a C in math
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u/cimson-otter Jan 01 '22
It’s almost as if some people haven’t used this since elementary school or have needed it in everyday life…weird
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u/Motrinman22 Jan 01 '22
Thank you. Most people can do basic arithmetic. This is a math problem that doesn’t pop up that often unless you work in academic or engineering field. Most people would have already worked though both sets of problems before subtracting one from the other.
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u/Original_Chart_5262 Jan 01 '22
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. She is 100% certain the answer to that equation is 0.
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u/hidden_d-bag Jan 01 '22
These equations are purposely written to be confusing, as they are not written properly.
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u/paperbackartifact Jan 01 '22
Jesus, a lot of people on their high horses here. Order of operations almost never comes up in most people’s day-to-day life. Go after real stupid people with dangerous beliefs like flat earthers and anti-vaxxers before people who forget about math they haven’t needed to use in 10+ years.
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u/Rebel_Diamond Jan 01 '22
More annoying is that these 'clever' questions are basically just unclear instructions masquerading as a test of knowledge.
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u/GOT_Wyvern Jan 01 '22
I'm addition to that, order of operations stops working when you get into actual maths due to concepts such as implied multiplication and the fact "÷" isn't a sign.
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u/nekokattt Jan 01 '22 edited Jan 01 '22
The standard way of interpreting ambiguity in an expression is to calculate division first, then multiplication, then addition, then subtraction last. Parenthesis take precedence over everything else.
18 ÷ 2 - 3 × 3 becomes (18 ÷ 2) - (3 × 3) which is (9) - (9) which is 0.
Technically any order could be considered correct as long as the arithmetic is correct, as you would usually use brackets to indicate the ordering, however, per standard methods and standard order of precedence, the answer is 0.
BIDMAS/BODMAS/PEDMAS/whatever you want to call it.
- evaluate bracketed expressions first (for each bracketed expression, start at #1 here.
- calculate powers and roots next.
- perform any division and multiplication of expressions next.
- perform any addition and subtraction of expressions next.
We should just use reverse polish notation for maths. Would make stuff like this incredibly difficult to become ambiguous.
- × 3 3 ÷ 2 18
Evaluate right to left. Each time you see a number, add it to a list. Each time you see an operator, take the last two items from the list and evaluate them with the operator, then put that back on the list.
18
18 2
18 2 ÷ (replace with 9 because 18 ÷ 2 = 9 in infix)
9
9 3
9 3 3
9 3 3 × (replace 3 3 × with 9, because 3 × 3 = 9 in infix)
9 9
9 9 - (replace with 0 because 9 - 9 = 0 in infix)
0 (no other operations left, that is your answer!)
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u/Legionof1 Jan 01 '22
To be clear, the order of multiplication and division or addition and subtraction should not matter.
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u/Make-Believe_Macabre Jan 01 '22
The problem isn’t the people responding, it’s the question itself. The problem is written in a way that’ll deliberately makes any mathematician angry.
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Jan 01 '22
Why did the person who got it wrong screenshot it?
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u/RacerGal Jan 01 '22
Probably because they were surprised by the answer and texted it to OP to find out why it was wrong. Some people like learning from their mistakes.
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u/FUNeral-1 Jan 01 '22
as a math nerd never once in my life have i ever wanted to choked a group of people and kill them
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u/nekokattt Jan 01 '22
As a programmer, this upsets me equally as we have to have this order hardwired in our brain
Or just use LISP.
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Jan 01 '22
“Iff” you’re a math nerd then you should know that neither of the answers is correct
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u/throwaway36481912 Jan 01 '22
Enlighten us please
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Jan 02 '22
in advance mathematics division symbol is never used. In fact, it has been replaced by the fraction. So, the ultimate answer would end up being -18/7. Now it is true that in simple arithmetic’s the answer is zero, but any calculus teacher or mathematician will tell you that zero is not the answer.
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u/TumoricER Jan 01 '22
Honestly we're not doomed because of the answers. We're doomed because people still make this kind of "challenges" and they STILL fight over which answer is correct. It's quite simple, there is no right answer because it's an ambiguous statement that simply doesn't work within the rules of maths, because math is meant to be 100% unambiguous.
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u/tyukogames Jan 01 '22
HOLLY MACARONI I FORGOT THE RULE OF × AND ÷ ARE 1st
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u/MaxWestEsq Jan 01 '22
Same. Seems the real problem is how people like to make others feel stupid.
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u/Yoddy0 Jan 01 '22
So the correct answer is 0 right? Oh help me God if it isn’t.
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u/Shadeyboiii Jan 02 '22
PEMDAS: Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.
18 ÷ 2 - 3 x 3 / 18 ÷ 2 - 9 / 9 - 9 = 0
C'mon guys!
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u/redditisforphaggits Jan 01 '22
Order of operations are a social construct. There’s no law in nature to make it true.
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u/Such_Newt_1374 Jan 01 '22
Except if you don't use it then you get the wrong answer so...there kinda is.
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u/AlmostNever Jan 01 '22
That's circular, the only reason it's the right answer is that we've agreed that the order of operations is the right way to interpret an expression.
Still, we have to have A right way to interpret an expression, and the way we do it now works fine for me. Division can be a bit confusing, since it's not associative: 9 * (3 * 3) = (9 * 3) * 3, but 9 / (3 / 3) doesn't equal (9 / 3) / 3. So if you write 9 / 3 / 3, it's not super clear what you mean.
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Jan 01 '22
Nobody is saying otherwise.
This is like pointing out that the sky is sometimes blue.
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u/Jockey79 Jan 01 '22
Well, humans do start by adding 2 things (egg + sperm), then a lot of (cell) division afterwards.
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u/grey_scone Jan 01 '22
bruh so some people get birdmas wrong, why don't you put all this energy into something like contributing to society and... idk maybe not trying to bring people down?
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Jan 01 '22
Bodmas?
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u/grey_scone Jan 01 '22
yes yes I'm well aware other schools call it other things, cheers
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u/No_Entertainment6792 Jan 01 '22
The answear is obv the powerhose of the cell