I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.
It’s about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it’s worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I’m probably biased because I wrote it :)
Notation is read left to right, reading it in any other order is automatically incorrect. Just like if you read a sentence out of order you won’t get it’s intention. Like I said, if you actually follow the rules it’s almost like implicit multipication having a higher order doesn’t work, which makes it illigitimate mathematics.
It’s not left to right. a+b*c is unambiguously equal to a+(b*c) and not (a+b)*c.
You determine processing order by order of operations then left to right. Always have. Even in your example, that is the left-most highest order operand, nothing ambiguous about it.
So it’s “higher operands first, then left to right.” I agree. But you presuppose that e.g. multiplication is higher than addition (which, again, I agree with). But now they say implicit multiplication is higher than explicit multiplication. You apparently disagree, but this has nothing to do with “left to right” now.
Just because they say one type of multiplication has precedence doesn’t make it so. We’ve already shown how using parenthesis negates that concept, and matches the output of the method that doesn’t give implicit multiplication precedence, ipso facto, giving ANY multiplication precedence over other multiplication or division doesn’t conform to the rule of highest-operand left to right and doesn’t conform to mathematical notation, and provides an answer that is wrong when the equation is correctly extrapolated with parenthesis, ergo it is utterly conceptually, objectively, and demonstrably, incorrect.
Edit: It was at this moment he realised, he fucked up. Using parenthesis doesn’t resolve to one or the other because the issue is inherent ambiguity in how the the unstated operand is represented by the intention of the writer. They’re both wrong because the writer is leaving an ambiguous assumption in a mathematical notation. Ergo, USE PARENTHESES, ALWAYS.
It’s not that their words have magic power. It’s that it’s just an arbitrary notational convention in the first place.
Using parentheses doesn’t “negate” or “match” anything. (a * b) + c and a * (b + c) are two different expressions specifically because of the use of parentheses, regardless of the relative order of the * and + without parentheses.
You’re right, I had that epiphany and and updated my comment. Thanks for helping me educate myself.
There’s no ambiguity - The Distributive Law applies to all bracketed terms.
You’re responding to a 3 month old post without even reading all of what you’re replying to. Are you retarded?
I read what you wrote when you said…
…and I responded by saying there’s no such thing as ambiguity in Maths (and in this case it’s because of The Distributive Law, and the paragraph before that was about “implicit multiplication” of which there is no such thing). I therefore have no idea what you’re talking about in saying I’m replying to something I haven’t read, when I quite clearly am responding to something I have read.
No, I’m a Maths teacher (hence why I know it’s not ambiguous - I know The Distributive Law. In fact I teach it. You can find info about it here - contains actual Maths textbook references, unlike the original article under discussion here).
So you are retarded.
Correct! “implicit multiplication” is NOT a rule of Maths. It’s something made up by those who don’t remember all the actual rules, which includes The Distributive Law and Terms.