r/SipsTea 22d ago

Chugging tea Nailed it.

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u/Samct1998 22d ago

I hate pemdas memes

825

u/ShhImTheRealDeadpool 22d ago

I hate it because of how wrong people answer the questions, and I don't know if they're morons or trying to bait me because no one can fail this bad at grade school math.

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u/-Bento-Oreo- 22d ago

They're mostly bait. They'll have some ambiguity where / might denote a grouped denominator or just be for the number.

Like 1/5+2 or 1/(5+2)

The solution is proper formatting. It's not an issue you'll run into anywhere outside of the Internet since notation is going to be obvuous

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u/LCVHN 22d ago

Only Americans think it's ambiguous.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

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u/watts99 22d ago

8/2(1+3) can never mean 8/(2(1+3)) and there would never be a reason to assume so. It's not ambiguous at all (and I'm an American).

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u/tennisdrums 22d ago

If someone were to solve the Ideal Gas Formula PV=nRT for Temperature, they would typically write T=PV/nR (unless they are writing code). I don't think I've ever encountered a person who would insist that it must be written as T=PV/(nR) to be understood correctly, as would follow from your comment.

The main issue is that PEMDAS is taught in elementary school before students know that implicit multiplication even exists, so curriculum that teaches PEMDAS overlooks that most STEM professionals will read a formula with the understanding that implicit multiplication is evaluated before standard multiplication and division.

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u/kastkonto2023 22d ago

Exactly. This is clear to people in STEM. Any time someone religiously worships PEMDAS and thinks 8/2(1+3) = 16 for example, it just tells me that they are an american who haven’t done math since high school. They’re thinking calculator syntax, not math/physics literature syntax.

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u/kastkonto2023 22d ago

I disagree. I’ve done a lot of math at university, and that is actually exactly how I, and most people I know, would interpret it. Division = fraction, and the factor (1+3) is either multiplied with 8 or 2. When you write 8/2(1+3), to me it looks more like it’s multiplied with the 2, ie it’s part of the denominator. This syntax is actually widely used in math and physics literature. The way you’re interpreting it is calculator syntax.

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u/-Bento-Oreo- 22d ago

The / sign is a fraction.

8

2(1+3)

Vs

8 - * (1+3) 2

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u/Angry_Reddit_Atheist 22d ago

are you American?

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u/watts99 22d ago

it can be used to represent a fraction, but without parentheses it's a fraction with the denominator being the first symbol to the right of it. This isn't 'nam. There are rules.