@ApostateEnglishman@mastodon.world
Post #4256281
2026-07-30 05:34 UTC
@SmartmanApps@dotnet.social @simon@bne.social It's called the order of operations, which is indeed a notational convention.
Is it (18÷3)x2
or
18÷(3x2)?
They're different questions. The Platonic part is that both have a universally correct answer.
Replies (1)
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@SmartmanApps@dotnet.social 2026-07-30 05:40
@ApostateEnglishman@mastodon.world @simon@bne.social "It's called the order of operations, which is indeed a notational convention" - they're rules, the order of operations rules "Is it (18÷3)x2 or 18÷(3x2)?" - neither, it's what I wrote in the poll, the way it was always written before we started using brackets in Maths, when Euler started using them in the 18th Century "both have a universally correct answer" - as does the expression I wrote, and has done for many centuries