Originally Posted by mike_302

ROFLMACTOPER! Is this for real? Guys and girls... It's 288. The calculator will produce 2 if you don't put the asterisk there because of the way it's programmed to interpret a(b) vs. a*b. No one in here should be having that problem. It's division first, then multiplication by the bracket: Why? BEDMAS says so.

And for all the people saying "It's 2! Look at my math" .... Stop adding brackets. Brackets changes the equation.

Also, nothing implies anything. The equation, as provided by the OP, has a single answer. Saying "This implies that" is of your own doing.

Never question the dude in eng

Originally Posted by ~*Sara*~

There's nothing ambiguous about it in my opinion. You always work left to right with the terms and follow the order based on the rules of BEDMAS.

Besides, Afzal said so. How can you question him....!

I got 99% in Kindergarten Math (yes...they grade those in Pakistan), 99% in 7th Grade Math and 95% in GCE O level Math and 95% in GCE A level Math. I am in Engineering 2nd year.

Do not question me, period.

It's 288.

To explain simply:

It would result in a 2 if you're looking at the question like this:


Clearly, without the question being 48/(2(9+3)), I don't see how you people can interpret it that way.

In before some genius argues like this idiot here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...55 505AA0F9In

The distributive property DOESN'T state that the whole statement can't be broken so that argument is a fail.

F***ing noobs.

[quote=Afzal;232000]I got 99% in Kindergarten Math (yes...they grade those in Pakistan), 99% in 7th Grade Math and 95% in GCE O level Math and 95% in GCE A level Math. I am in Engineering 2nd year.

Do not question me, period.




-_- you being in engineering doesn't mean you're right.

48÷2(9+3) could be interpreted in both ways.

Some say if the answer is 2, that would imply having brackets before the 2 like this: 48÷(2(9+3))

However, the same can be said about 288, it implies having brackets like this: (48÷2)(9+3)

Why can't we just accept that due to the way it's written, there isn't an answer?

This can be compared to the question "is pi a normal number?" to this date there isn't enough evidence to answer that question, and a lot of people still claim that it is normal, or that it isn't.

[quote=Eternal Fire;232001]

Originally Posted by Afzal

I got 99% in Kindergarten Math (yes...they grade those in Pakistan), 99% in 7th Grade Math and 95% in GCE O level Math and 95% in GCE A level Math. I am in Engineering 2nd year.

Do not question me, period.




-_- you being in engineering doesn't mean you're right.

48÷2(9+3) could be interpreted in both ways.

Some say if the answer is 2, that would imply having brackets before the 2 like this: 48÷(2(9+3))

However, the same can be said about 288, it implies having brackets like this: (48÷2)(9+3)

Why can't we just accept that due to the way it's written, there isn't an answer?

This can be compared to the question "is pi a normal number?" to this date there isn't enough evidence to answer that question, and a lot of people still claim that it is normal, or that it isn't.

Did you see the fraction image?

will you interpret the following:

52/2*(25)

as

52/(2(25))?

Also, learn the difference between a serious paragraph and a sarcastic one.

[quote=Afzal;232003]

Originally Posted by Eternal Fire

Did you see the fraction image?

will you interpret the following:

52/2*(25)

as

52/(2(25))?

Also, learn the difference between a serious paragraph and a sarcastic one.

It doesn't matter how I or anyone interprets 52/2*(25) because the original question doesn't have the " * " symbol.

And no, I don't know the difference between a serious paragraph and a sarcastic one, could you teach me??

[quote=Eternal Fire;232008]

Originally Posted by Afzal

It doesn't matter how I or anyone interprets 52/2*(25) because the original question doesn't have the " * " symbol.

And no, I don't know the difference between a serious paragraph and a sarcastic one, could you teach me??

Take a course on it, make university helpful irl for once.

okay then 52/2 (25)

do you interpret that as 52 / (2(25)) (I say interpret because obviously the problem is that we can't agree on single interpretation of the question)

Considering the left to right order (seeing that BEDMAS and PEMDAS are just guidelines), it (the question) would most certainly be computed as:

48 / 2 (12)
24 (12)
288

Can you explain why you would multiply 2 by 12 before the division and not after it?

Correct me if I'm wrong:

48 / 2 * 12 is the same as 48 / 2 (12) since 2 * 12 = 2(12)

well assuming the 2 is in brackets its 48/(2(9+3))= 2
its similar to if the glass is half empty or half full...it all depends on perspective

Originally Posted by Afzal

To explain simply:

It would result in a 2 if you're looking at the question like this:


Clearly, without the question being 48/(2(9+3)), I don't see how you people can interpret it that way.

Let x = 9+3
48 ÷ 2x = 288

Originally Posted by Afzal

Take a course on it, make university helpful irl for once.

Afzel, why do you have to be such a dick?

He's in mathematics, you are in computer science. As far as I am aware, you only took first year engineering mathematics. Second year engineering mathematics isn't required in your program.

Eternal has a point, the question is likely to be inconclusive and Frank has already proved it. So, take his post with a grain of salt, otherwise, go back to whatever country you come from. It's certainly not in Canada.

Originally Posted by JEFF_CHAN

Let x = 9+3
48 ÷ 2x = 288

you realize that makes it look like it equals 2 not 288.

x=12

48/2x = 2

Originally Posted by ReDorkulateD

you realize that makes it look like it equals 2 not 288.

x=12

48/2x = 2

Kinda my point

Or I can't be subtle with my posts?

"Hey Afzal, this is why people can interpret it like 48/(2(9+3)), look how wrong 48 ÷ 2x = 288 loooooooks"

Originally Posted by JEFF_CHAN

Kinda my point

Or I can't be subtle with my posts?

"Hey Afzal, this is why people can interpret it like 48/(2(9+3)), look how wrong 48 ÷ 2x = 288 loooooooks"

oh lol my bad, didn't read afzal's post

Originally Posted by Eternal Fire

This can be compared to the question "is pi a normal number?" to this date there isn't enough evidence to answer that question, and a lot of people still claim that it is normal, or that it isn't.

What exactly do you mean by "normal"? That seems to be more of an aesthetic question - namely, 'what sort of number system is the canonical one?', and I don't really think it stems from an ambiguity in the same manner as this one does. There is, it seems, an 'incurable' sort of ambiguity to it, though. I always justified it by considering the reals as a sort of 'canonical' numeric form, drawing the analogue between the continuum and time (or something similarly irrational, haha).
This problem, on the other hand, stems from the fact that the string may not be well-formed. I mean, the very fact that people are arguing over its interpretation kind of points out that this is the case.

So I don't quite see how the questions are similar, unless one stretches the idea of well-formedness rather far (I think, absurdly far) back.

Originally Posted by Bhaltair

Afzel, why do you have to be such a dick?

He's in mathematics, you are in computer science. As far as I am aware, you only took first year engineering mathematics. Second year engineering mathematics isn't required in your program.

Eternal has a point, the question is likely to be inconclusive and Frank has already proved it. So, take his post with a grain of salt, otherwise, go back to whatever country you come from. It's certainly not in Canada.

Don't be a racist man, me being in Canada has absolutely nothing to do with this math problem. Also Frank only proved that even the same company uses two different algorithms in different models of their calculators, that's not the same as proving that the answer is inconclusive. Dunno about the TI ones but those Casio ones are pretty old now. 991 ES was released way back in 2005 as a successor to the 991MS. I have both right now and even they don't output the same answer, doesn't mean the question is inconclusive.

Edit: TI-86 and TI-85 have been long discontinued (2004 and 1997 respectively).

If anything, the newer of the four outputs 288 but you might wanna question the integrity of the algorithms a company uses if their own two products aren't consistent.

TI had to explicitly program this "feature" in their calculators to give you one of the answers and even they're not in consensus about it:
http://epsstore.ti.com/OA_HTML/csksx...ortByOrder%3D1

I'll give you a type of calculator that'll give you the same answer every time you put in the equation the same way: An RPN calculator.

Test case:
48
2
/
(9+3)
x
=288

48
2
(9+3)
x
/
=2 (But did you go left-to-right in this one?)

@Jeff: Let's take another approach:

Division = Inverse of multiplication:

48/2(9+3)
= 48 * 1/2 * (9+3)
or 48 * 0.5 * (9+3) = 288

for the given equation to result in 2, you'll just have to make more brackets.

Oh and ... Maple crashed.

For the troll: http://www.zazzle.com/48_2_9_3_tshir...82834792365529

Quote a text explicitly saying that implied multiplication has a higher priority than division/multiplication.

Ima take 48÷2(9+3) minutes of peace.

Edit: After reading an hour's worth of crap, I change my stance: The question is wrong. The usage of brackets is to be explicit, the problem with this question is that some people think that more brackets are implied and hence the question isn't explicit enough.

I still need to see some academic text for brackets being implied though.