what say you...(math problem)

what is the answer

  • 2

    Votes: 37 43.5%
  • 288

    Votes: 48 56.5%

  • Total voters
    85
as they appear left to right.

People keep saying this, and I don't really get it. If you're just saying that
1/2 does not equal 2/1, fine. But if you're talking order of operation, it just doesn't matter, so I see no need for the distinction (and have never heard of it).
 
left to right is just an indication of what to do first .......

Addition and Subtraction are similar, yet opposite operations, but here's a problem that shows how left to right makes a difference.

for instance ....... 1+2-3 ...... one plus two is first, then subtract three

so the next for instance ...... 1-2+3 ...... one subtract two, then add three

for further proof ....... 1st example .... change everything to addition .... 1+2+(-3) ........ = 0
yet ................................. 2nd example .........................................1+(-2)+3 ........ = 2
 
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I see it as 2 all day long, solve the denominator first before performing division.

48 OVER 2(9+3)

My wife sees it as 288, so she sleeps on the sofa tonight.
 
I honestly don't know how some of you dress yourselves in the morning. Do you put your underwear over your pants? The answer's 288 dammit. 288 !!! The next person that says the answer's two gets deported back to gradeschool. Try paying attention to the teacher this time around rather than eating Play-Doh like a glutton. ok?

The formula's not written as:
__48__
2(9+3)
to constitute 2 as the answer; therefore, you're making assumptions; therefore you fail.
 
Man when you google this question it makes you want to punch a baby.

I guess people easily forget it's M AND!! D.

PEMDAS is a simple concept, yet that missing AND in the acronym confuses everyone.

Amurica...
 
Most the arguments I've seen consist of "Using Pemdas it's two" But they never explain the steps... mainly because it can't be done with the answer two.

I saw a couple referring to FOIL which only works on Binomials...

Logic fail :(
 
i saw it as the 48 OVER 2(9+3) and adressed it like this:

48
2(9+3)

to get rid of the (9+3) on the bottom you have to do apply it to the top. so then you would divide the 48 and the 2 by (9+3)

leaving you 48/(9+3) = 48/12 = 4
and the bottom is just 2

so 4/2 = 2


ive been out of school for a good while and am no math whiz just throwing a different idea out there
 
right. the point of the OP was that it could be read multiple ways. no, I am not saying one is right over the other or both are.....


But from the OLD threads on other boards they posted it that way because different calculators were coming up with different answers. so they wanted to see what people thought
 
288

48/2(9+3)
48/2(12)
48/2*12
24*12
=288

If the answer is 2 the equation would look more like this: 48/(2(9+3)). That would be 48 OVER 2(9+3).

In the original equation that are no brackets nor parentheses denoting that the 2(9+3) is the denominator. Another way of writing the original equation is 48/2 * (9+3). Or 48 over 2 times (9+3). Parentheses first then work left to right.
 
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