288 if I'm not mistaken, however I'd define the problem better if I wanted a more certain answer across the board.
Poll: What is the answer to 48/2(9+3)?
- Thread starter Brawndo
- Start date
PEMDAS does not matter if you can't understand what the problem is asking you. Write it out on paper guys. Seriously. The question asksteethofymir said:
48
----
2(9+3)
It does NOT ask
48
--- * (9+3)
2
You have to reduce the denominator before you can divide. I can not stress this enough, when there is a division symbol, it means that it is a fraction.
Good job at getting the answer right, but really, people need to stop mentioning PEMDAS, because, like I said, it doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing.
Again, while in school in Eastern Europe i have never seen any formula ever be written like that and only know of it because of computers...Atmos Duality said:
Do try to understand, writing it one after another on the same exact line while using "/" is the problem, it's not such a wide spread way to do it, or at least it wasn't 8-10 years ago (i don't count college because the math teachers we had in 1st year where so old they wouldn't have used newer representations then anything pre-1960).
The proper way to write it would be using supra and subscript, but nowadays writing it 23/45 is also wide spread, but not as much as you seem to think (not everyone has heard of wikipedia you know): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidus_%28punctuation%29#Mathematics
Like the metric system not everyone has the exact same symbols for the same math rule... and you're acting like they do or as if the symbols themselves matter (it's still the same math in arabic or kanji).
That's exactly right. You have to dumb the equation down to allow a computer to get the question right. There are IMPLIED parentheses around 2(9+3), because it is IMPLIED that it is in the denominator thanks to the division symbol. Computers don't know to include the IMPLIED parentheses, so they give you the WRONG answer. That's why you DON'T trust calculators with math, unless you know how to do it yourself.mps4li3n said:
It's not that they have different interpretations of the division symbol, they simply do not know what it means.mps4li3n said:
Also, yes, I logged into this site purely because of this thread. It amazed me that so many of you don't know how to perform basic equations.
It's really hard to tell with the way you wrote that horizontally. I can't tell if it's supposed to be
48(9+3)
____
2
or
48
_____
2(9+3)
48(9+3)
____
2
or
48
_____
2(9+3)
American math is no different from math done anywhere else around the world. People everywhere don't know what the division symbol means, it is not based upon which country you live in. Don't go jumping to conclusions that just because some people in a forum primarily populated by Americans got a math question wrong, that means that all Americans do basic equations incorrectly.Rarhnor said:
The thing is, our teacher told us that multiply and divide comes befor subtraction and addition, but not which comes first, but not which of multiplying or dividing is first... but now I know, and knowing is half the battle!
If you had read my previous posts you'd understand that i have never actually seen the "/"symbol used in a class room where i'm from... we used ":" instead (no tiny line in between either) and the underscore thing for fractions or suprascript and underscript with "/" .Joseph Webb said:
First time i saw it done like in the OP it was very confusing to me...
So regional variants do exist, even if they're more minute then in language etc.
And that's the problem, it's not a perfectly uniform system worldwide when it comes to how you read a formula, even if the math behind it is exactly the same.
If we knew exactly what was being calculated (someone posted an example with 48 days and half shifts that would result in 228) there would be no confusion at all.
It is not a matter of which you do first, it's a matter of understanding the question. Read the last 10 or so comments, and you'll see how to do the problem very neatly. Also, yes, I'm going to keep replying to this thread until people stop getting the answer wrong. I will apparently never be done responding.Pontus Hashis said:
Because neither does... 48/2 is the same as 48*0.5, if you know that you don't need to have any come first...Pontus Hashis said:
The issue here is that it's not clear if the fraction is 48/2 or 48/2(9+3). And obviously people have been taught both variations.