MoonlitSunshine

I see you really read my post there. At no point did I say you could just move the parentheses around. The answer is ambiguous. The only way you can "solve" it is by using a convention, of which there are multiple, which this thread is clearly proving.

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent

[MERIT]

And I have always been taught the exact opposite. With multiplication taking precedence over division, and addition over subtraction. From grade school through high school, and even through my Calculus I,II, III and Differential Equations math courses at my University. It's astounding that something as finite as mathematic could be interpreted differently by different people.

MoonlitSunshine

...because the equation is ambiguous. I've been saying this for four pages :P

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent

Burning Down

Same here, and I have a graphing calculator that cost me over $150. I'm hoping it's not spitting out crap.

[MERIT]

When I plug it into both my Texas Instruments and Casio scientific calculators (the entire equation as it is written, not part by part) they both give me the same answer: 1.

storymilo

Yeah, I always assumed it was the same everywhere. This thread has been an eye-opener.

Burning Down

That's interesting. I was almost certain that most math was taught the same way in the US and Canada, because our educational curricula are almost the same. Maybe it varies from state to state?

I've only been out of high school for ~3 years, so everything that I've learned is still pretty fresh in my little brain.

It really has. Perhaps I will learn more about different math formulas, etc, when I get to teacher's college.

storymilo

I have a Texas Instruments too (a graphing one) and it gave me nine. Even our calculators are different...

I suppose if you were to look at the equation with all different orders in mind, it would be ambiguous. When you pick just one, it has a clearly defined answer. As it's presented, without any extra parentheses, the only way to solve it is to use an order of operations. So that's what I did.

storymilo

It would seem it varies from state to state, as oojay is in Missouri and I'm in Connecticut.

MoonlitSunshine

"pick one" is not a solution. If you have a equation x + y = 5, you can't just "pick a y" and then assume your answer for x is correct. You need more information, namely a value for y, or in the case of this thread, extra parentheses to define whether the * or the / should be done first.

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent