this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 50 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm with the right answer here. / and * have same precedence and if you wanted to treat 2(2+2) as a single unit, you should have written it like (2*(2+2)).

[–] [email protected] 74 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It's pretty common even in academic literature to treat implied multiplication as having higher precedence than explicit multiplication/division. Otherwise an expression like 1 / 2n would have to be interpreted as (1 / 2) * n rather than the more natural 1 / (2 * n).

A lot of this bullshit can be avoided with better notation systems, but calculators tend to be limited in what you can write, so meh. Unless you want to mislead people for the memes, just put parentheses around things.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That's fair. Personally, I just have a grudge against math notation in general. Makes my programmer brain hurt when there's no consistency and a lot of implicit rules.

Then again, I also like Lisp so I'm not exactly without sin.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

As a musician, can I just say: I would give my right nut for a musical notation system that is as clearly defined as mathematical notation. The worst part is that everyone that attempts to fix musical notation, just creates a new standard of notation.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq3bUFgEcb4

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I know what video you linked even without clicking lol. Yeah, I can agree there. Although my only experience with music was "try to learn guitar, get distracted because ADHD".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The rocksmith game might help you.

Even guitarhero/rockband will help you with using your fingers and will help when you want to try a real guitar. Muscle memory might not be great but for someone who is just doing it for fun it will be helpful getting your fretting and strumming coordination. And them being games might help fend off the adhd enough to keep you motivated to pick it up again after putting it down

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I appreciate the sentiment, but I really don't have time for another hobby.

I did accidentally become a DM for not one but two DnD groups recently.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Makes my programmer brain hurt when there’s no consistency and a lot of implicit rules.

All the order of operations rules of Maths are explicit

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The problem is whether or not that rule is taught depends on when and where you learned it. Schools only started teaching that rule relatively recently, and even then, not universally. Which of course makes for ideal engagement bait on your hellsite of choice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Schools only started teaching that rule relatively recently

Recently? The order of operations rules have been taught for more than a century (we can see them in Lennes' letter).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Order of operations in general, yes. Implied multiplication coming before explicit multiplication/division is what's recent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Implied multiplication coming before explicit multiplication/division is what’s recent.

  1. "implicit multiplication" is not taught, because there's no such thing as implicit multiplication
  2. the "controversy" over it isn't recent either - we can see Lennes complaining about it more than 100 years ago! The more things change the more they stay the same (sigh).
[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I’m with the right answer here

Apparently not.

if you wanted to treat 2(2+2) as a single unit

Yes, it is a Term subject to The Distributive Law, written just the way it is.