Kind of an audiophile argument

bonzo75

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Macattack

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She broke her own rule and did the first problem wrong when she Divided 8 by 2 instead of Multiplying 2 by 4... the answer is 1.
 

JackD201

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It's a trick! The equation is short a set of parenthesis' on purpose. LOL

However, if someone was really trying to figure things out by formig a word problem the equation would likely have turned out with the more conventional look of an expression like 2(2+2)/8=n

Human nature will most often deal with what we've got on hand before we divvy them up right?
 
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NorthStar

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She broke her own rule and did the first problem wrong when she Divided 8 by 2 instead of Multiplying 2 by 4... the answer is 1.

I'd say 16

The equation seems to be presented with a little ambiguity though, as if it was more a social resolve than a mathematical one.
 

mulveling

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Just publish the language specification for what the expression is written in. That'll clear it up.
 
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RogerD

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grade school math:)
 

mulveling

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But "grade school math" doesn't come with a specification to resolve these kinds of ambiguities, without additional punctuation or spacing to clear up the confusion. From context we can tell that the space between the first 2 and lead parenthetical ( is intended as an implicit multiplication operator. But it's ambiguous whether an implicit multiplication operator carries a higher binding power than an explicit op (X or *). It kind of leads the eye to believe that it is, because its two operands are physically more tightly packed (I would argue this is a reasonable, but not necessary assumption in the absence of extra information). In that case, you'd evaluate it before the divide op and the answer is 1. However, if the implicit multiply op is intended to have the same binding power as explicit multi and divide, then the left-to-right evaluation applies and the little girl's answer of 16 is correct. As it stands, any teacher assigning this - without also providing a more stringent definition of operator precedence, better spacing/formatting, or extra grouping parenthesis to disambiguate - is a jerk.

Computer programming languages - almost all of which contain expression languages that approximate grade school math (sans the implicit mult operators) - usually come with very stringently defined language specifications to avoid ambiguities like this.
 

bonzo75

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The answer is 16. Socrates said music is mathematical progression and I go to a lot of concerts and I feel 16 is more real so it must be correct.
 

bonzo75

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The whole point of the article, which I thought was well written, is that when something is kept a bit ambiguous, people argue over it a lot. And even though the article said that, people kept arguing in large numbers over the solution. Hence it reminded me of audiophiles and I put it up here.
 
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JackD201

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The answer is 16. Socrates said music is mathematical progression and I go to a lot of concerts and I feel 16 is more real so it must be correct.

Let's have some fun with this by translating it into a word problem instead of arguing :)

Anybody want to give it a whirl with the intentions of getting 1 and/or 16 WITHOUT adding added parenthesis'?? :D

Here's my go that will end up with the result of 1

I need to distribute eight badges to two families comprised of a pair of parents and a pair of children each. Do I have enough badges? :)

I find going left to right finding a situation resulting in 16 much more challenging. Anybody want to try?
 
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JackD201

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The 16s have high potential for comedy

I had eight badges but my idiot assistant accidentally threw have of them away so now I have to do two runs of two sets apiece because my damn printer can't do more than 2 copies at a time in case he throws the original eight away!! Whuh? That's still wrong! LOL!
 

Robh3606

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Eight divided by 2 multiplied by 2+2 equals

Rob
 

JackD201

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Come on Rob you just read it left to right. How about some sort of practical application? :)
 

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