MoonlitSunshine

It was. I was showing why "equal priority/rank" is a minefield.

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Janszoon

Why is it a mine field? When they're equal rank you just move from left to right. Seems easy enough.

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MoonlitSunshine

Because it's all very well to say that, but there's absolutely no guarantee that the person you're communicating with feels the same way... as is evident from this thread.

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midnight rain

So you want people to just throw out well established math principles because they "feel" like it? Bottom line, you do it the way oojay did it and you wouldn't be taken seriously in the math community, you'd get the question wrong on a test, etc. Because the math community abides by some universal guidelines where parentheses are assumed, or not assumed depending on the situation. And it's a matter of learning when they're necessary

Solving it oojay's way is the equivalent of putting a period in the middle of a sentence; no one's stopping you from doing it. But the rules that govern basic math that were established to keep a standard would say it's incorrect. You don't get to choose how a problem's solved if it breaks the rules of math laid down just because you feel like it. Unless you want the wrong answer, of course.

Janszoon

But if there's an established way it's handled, as there appears to be, what does it matter how someone feels about it?

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MoonlitSunshine

Do you want to reference a paper or some sort of quote from "The mathematical community" to back up these wild, wild statements?

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MoonlitSunshine

Because the "established way it's handled" isn't universally established. They've been doing polls on this recently, the answer given isn't universally equal. As I was saying earlier, you might as well say "Well, people know what I mean if I spell words incorrectly, so there's no point in correcting my spelling".

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midnight rain

I don't think that's what EvilChuck is looking for, regardless of if it's being challenged. I think he just wanted the answer that's taught in school and practiced in practical life.

And it seems pretty established to me, that's why Google calculator knew what I meant even when I didn't add the parentheses. Just because people are doing the problem incorrectly doesn't mean we should accept that as an alternative answer.

TheBig3

I was willing to overlook that fact that you dodged a question you didn't know the answer to, despite it saying a lot about your intellectual character.

But if you're going to charge around as the pied ****ing piper of the math elite, lets let it stand here. So long as the order of operations doesn't directly show what people should do - its flawed.

You'll note at no point did Oojay do math incorrectly. And the latitude for it to be correct. What you're doing right now is claiming you're the smartest man in the room because the most people think so. If we were to believe that, we'd have to start believing that the MB Awards hold water, or that this thread will determine a posting pecking-order.

Most of us came to this thread to have a discussion and further our understanding. Not to pull our mathematical-****s out and compare sizes.

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midnight rain

Doing the math oojay's way still gets you 9, as I think canwll showed earlier in the thread.

6/2*(1+2)
P: 6/2*(3)
E: 6/2*(3)
M: 18/2
D: 9
A: 9
S: 9

This isn't about me, either, I'm not sure where you got that idea from. I don't know what question I ignored, either.