this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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6÷2(1+2) (programming.dev)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by wischi@programming.dev to c/memes@lemmy.ml
 

https://zeta.one/viral-math/

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 :)

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[–] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My years out of school has made me forget about how division notation is actually supposed to work and how genuinely useless the ÷ and / symbols are outside the most basic two-number problems. And it's entirely me being dumb because I've already written problems as 6÷(2(1+2)) to account for it before. Me brain dun work right ;~;

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

There's no forms consensus on which one is correct. To avoid misunderstanding mathematicians use a horizontal bar.

[–] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago

The one that is least ambiguous is objectively more correcter.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 8 months ago

Only if it's a fraction. If it's 2 separate terms then you use whatever your country uses for division - obelus or colon or whatever. They have to be 2 separate things, otherwise how would you write to divide by a fraction?