I have a neighbour who claims that he was taught in 70's a simple left to right order of operations.
so 4+5x8 = 72 rather than 44
If this possible? I did some searches and found that the order of operations was settled in the late 1800s.
I have a neighbour who claims that he was taught in 70's a simple left to right order of operations.
so 4+5x8 = 72 rather than 44
If this possible? I did some searches and found that the order of operations was settled in the late 1800s.
No.
Use parentheses
PEMDAS, motherfucker.
False premise. The British study 'maths' not math.
It's maths, Brits don't know what math is.
Your neighbor didn't pass his a levels
part maybe 15% of email he sent to my wife rest lots of hand waving about his hurt feeling because I posted a BBC video from Open University that I thought ended the matter
"This was not taught until relatively recently in the U.K. Or at least there was no national consistency. It was changing right about the time my kids were going through school. Not only was it not taught, a different left to right system was taught, and we too had a little phrase drilled into us. This is not simply about omitting to teach it. In our method we resolve the individual groups or clusters and then work from left to right applying each numeral and function in sequence. Interestingly in a phrase such as X(A+B), we would resolve it as one item before proceeding. "
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My British father in law said 72. He said it should be in parentheses if you want to arrive at 44. He also said there's a difference between simple arithmetic and algebra. Ok then...
Order of operations just allows you to not use the brackets or parentheses.
On Brits getting 72 there might be something to this but if you simply did it left to right the you would get the wrong answer for E=mc**2 a Brit would go m x c and then square the product and end up with ( mc)**2 which is wrong
"behind the bike sheds..."
A DS reference?
No. E=mc^2 is not simple arithmetic according to my father in law. Apparently he makes a distinction between simple arithmetic, which allows him to arrive at 72, and all other not simple arithmetic, which allows him to correctly calculate E=mc^2.
For the record, I agree with you DougW. I'm incredulous. So is my 14 yo son taking pre-calc. He was very adamant about the order of ops that you and I agree on.
Its funny that was a different rule for simple math vs not so simple. The funny thing in this case that he was there for the change over so knows about the new "convention" but doesn't pigheadedly use it.
Quite. Couldn't get O levels in maths without knowing the order of operations...
O, or "Ordinary" Levels were standard high school cirricula completions. ie Maths, History, English Grammar/Comp, Chemistry, etc, in the absence of an America-style blanket diploma.
A, or "Advanced" Levels were advanced placement completions, like Calculus (for diff + the integral), Physics (physics with calc), Statistics, etc. More equivalent to college freshman.
^^ and there were also CSE's, which were below the O levels...
Must say, I am amongst the stupid & old.
What I see is multiplying the sum you have "after" doing the addition.
*Left to right.* you said?
(4+5=9, so 9×8=72)
Y'all are multiplying first, then adding.
So working *Right to left*.
(8×5=40, so 40+4=44)
Why not write it 8×5+4 then?
All will agree on outcome?
Is it convention to do mutiply/divide b4 add/subtract?
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This is approximately what I learned in 'murkin skool. Somewhere around 6th-8th grade (i.e. algebra) it got confusing because you'd need context to determine whether intent was L to R or PEMDAS.
Just like ambiguity in language, you can re-phrase. (4+5)*8 will get your rocket to Mars.
Later came Polish notation, RPN, stack and accumulator models, currying, ... I'm sure a few of you Piled it Higher and Deeper in math(s).
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