This has been around on the net, I'm interested in how Math people interpret this:
48/2(9+3) = ?
48/2(9+3) = ?
It's ambiguous unless you define the precedence of the operations. For example, the usual programming languages that use infix notation will interpret it (48/2)*(9+3). Results will be different for prefix or postfix notations. Personally, I'd interpret it like the infix programming languages. However, there's one case where I am occasionally sloppy and write units like W/m*K and I mean it as W/(m*K), not (W/m)*K, especially when I'm working with the GNU units program where such notation is not ambiguous.This has been around on the net, I'm interested in how Math people interpret this:
48/2(9+3) = ?
It was driven into me in college, regarding programming, "If in doubt, add another set of parenthesis".I have the first calculator. I've long gotten in the habit of using paranthesis.
If Multiplication is first, you did it out of sequence. My Dear Aunt Sadie is the one I learned. I interpret the 12 as under the division symbol, especially since the problem started with the ÷ symbol.I was taught with PEMDAS (or Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally--parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction). The way I would do this problem is this:
48/2(9+3)
1: Paretheses--48/2(12)
2: Multiplication or Division left-to-right--24(12)
3: Multiply: 24x12=288
Multiplication and Division are of equal importance--whichever comes first is done first. In that case, as was mentioned in another post, 48/2X would be READ as 48/(2X), but would actually be calculated as 24X.If Multiplication is first, you did it out of sequence. My Dear Aunt Sadie is the one I learned. I interpret the 12 as under the division symbol, especially since the problem started with the ÷ symbol.
If this was true, the problem would have to have been 48/2(1/x) in order to get the x in the denominator.I think most of us would interpret 48/2x as:
48
---
2x
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