💡𝚂𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝙰𝗉𝗉𝗌📱 @ SmartmanApps @programming.dev

Posts

22

Comments

590

Joined

2 yr. ago

So order of operations is hard?

Not for students it isn't. Adults who've forgotten the rules on the other hand...

Hey, this is Presh Talwalkar

Person who has forgotten about The Distributive Law and lied about 1917.

Discussion of a brief history of this viral math problem

Including lying about 1917

Ultimately followed by brief discussion on the order of operations

But forgets about Terms and The Distributive Law.

And that’s the answer

Now watch his other ones, where he screws it up royally. Dude has no idea how to handle brackets. Should be avoided at all costs.

There’s no “whatever-the-fuck-your-country-calls-it”

Yes there is. BEDMAS, BODMAS, and BIDMAS

the US is the only country using it

No they're not.

at some point they’re dropping it

No, at no point do the order of operations rules ever get dropped

using multiplication by juxtaposition (2x + 4x2)

They're called Terms/Products.

Where I live, this would be considered juxtaposition

Not just where you live, everywhere, in Maths textbooks. Adults forgetting the rules (and unqualified U.S. teachers not teaching what's in the textbooks) is another matter altogether.

For me it’s the arguments when there is a parentheses but no operator (otherwise known as implied multiplication)

No, it's known as Factorised Terms/Products, solved via The Distributive Law, a(b+c)=(ab+ac). "implied multiplication" is a made up rule by people who have forgotten the actual rules, and often they get it wrong (because, having wrongly called it "multiplication", they then wrongly give it the precedence of multiplication, not brackets).

You understand that gen x starts around 1965, right?

10 years earlier than that actually. Johnny Rotten, Billy Idol, etc. The U.S. came late to the party and started using their own definition.

This kind of problem falls under “communicating badly and acting smug when misunderstood”.

No it doesn't. It falls under adults forgetting the rules of Maths.

Use parenthesis and the problem goes away

There is no problem, other than adults who have forgotten the rules.

You might be smart

Smart-arse more like. A serial troll who doesn't actually know what they're talking about.

And that’s why people don’t write equations like that

Says someone who clearly hasn't looked in any Maths textbooks

If you wrote 6 + 4 / 2 in a paper you’d get reviewers complaining that it’s ambiguous

Only if their Maths was very poor. #MathsIsNeverAmbiguous

Working mathematicians never came up with PEMDAS

Yes they did.

which disambiguates it without parenthesis

It was never ambiguous to begin with.

Noone else does it that way

Says someone who has never looked in a non-U.S. Maths textbooks - BIDMAS, BODMAS, BEDMAS, all textbooks have one variation or another.

6 + 4 / 2 is 8 instead of 5?

The fundamental property of Maths that you have to solve binary operators before unary operators or you end up with wrong answers.

Maths is not about memorisation

It is for ROTE learners.

You are not supposed to remember that the area of a triangle is a * h / 2

Yes you are. A lot of students get the wrong answer when they forget the half.

you’re supposed to understand why it’s the case

Constructivist learners can do so, ROTE learners it doesn't matter. As long as they all know how to do Maths it doesn't matter if they understand it or not.

You’re supposed to be able to show that any triangle that can possibly exist is half the area of the rectangle it’s stuck in

No they're not.

If you’ve understood that once, there is no reason to remember anything because you can derive the formula at a moment’s notice.

And if you haven't understood it then there is a reason to remember it.

you can derive the formula at a moment’s notice

Students aren't expected to be able to do that.

All maths can be understood and derived like that

It can be by Constructivist learners, not ROTE learners.

The names of the colours, their ordering, the names of the planets and how they’re ordered, they’re arbitrary

No they're not. Colours are in spectrum order, the planets are in order from the sun.

Maths doesn’t, instead it dies when you apply memorisation

A very substantial chunk of the population does just fine with having memorised Maths.

What’s lazy about learning PEMDAS?

Nothing. Only people who don't know what they're talking about say that.

they aren’t teaching math.

Yes we are. Adults forgetting it is another matter altogether.

There’s no such thing as “order of operations” in math

Yes there is! 😂

Do you think I’m wrong?

No, I know you're wrong.

If so, why?

If you don't solve binary operators before unary operators you get wrong answers. 2+3x4=14, not 20. 3x4=3+3+3+3 by definition

A division is defined as a multiplication

No it isn't. Multiplication is defined as repeated addition. Division isn't repeated subtraction. They just happen to have opposite effects if you treat the quotient as being the result of dividing.

I like the version where these problems are made purposefully ambiguous

None of them are ambiguous. They all have only 1 correct answer, just like this one only has 1 correct answer. They all test if people remember the order of operations rules. Those who got it wrong, don't.

did addition before subtraction instead of left to right

No, what you actually did was put it inside brackets, thus changing the number of terms. Doing addition first gives the exact same answer as doing subtraction first...

subtraction first 10-1+1=9+1=10

addition first 10+1-1=11-1=10

You did 10-(1+1), hence the wrong answer. It doesn't matter which order you do it, though often students make mistakes with signs when they change the order, which is why we teach to do left to right.

Wow you just disproved all of academic mathematical foundations and philosophy!

You must be writing from an alternate universe where what I just said isn't already in textbooks and books on the history of Maths. It's certainly what we teach to students

Mathematics isn’t some objective truth

Yes it is. That's why it's such a huge part of Physics.

it’s just human made structures

The notation is. The rest is underlying laws of Nature.

Sometimes we can even apply them to real world situations!

Maths whole reason for being is to model real world situations.

(Not so) Fun fact: I first learnt how to use Xamarin from a book he wrote. It wasn't very good (not unlike Microsoft documentation). He started out just having everything in MainPage, then switched to having separate classes (like MVVM stuff), but didn't point out he had made this switch! The code snippets didn't reflect that this was actually now in a different class! Wait what?? Wait what?? Why is none of this working?! 😂 There was a later chapter about MVVM, but he had switched styles BEFORE that chapter. So when he talks about top-down and bottom-up, well, his book was an explode in the middle approach! 😂

the map is 2 communities short

Couldn't find 2 hidden communities? I guess it's working then! 😂