One of the Basic Math Rules You Learned In School Is Wrong

http://gizmodo.com/one-of-the-basic-math-rules-you-learned-in-school-is-wr-508550603

by theoutlander • 13 years ago

4 3 13 years ago

gizmodo.com

rbkillea• 13 years ago

I may be the only one who learned it this way, but here goes:

Square Brace (BPEMDAS with a silent B)

Parenthesis

Exponent

Multiply & Divide

Addition & Subtraction

When I learned PEMDAS (a long time ago) this was hammered into my head so well that I know the nuances to this day. In fact from what I recall there was 1 PEMDAS unit per year for a couple years in a row. Also, I hate sensationalism.

claudius• 13 years ago

The problem is to prioritise addition over subtraction and multiplication over division rather than assigning them equal priorities and evaluating the expression left-to-right. In German, there is no ‘PEMDAS’ but only ‘Punkt vor Strich’ (‘Dots before dashes’?), i.e. multiplication/division (·,:) before addition/subtraction (+,-). Parentheses obviously still take precedence.

cahitonur• 13 years ago

I must be lucky then or my teacher was a real good one. I even didn't learn something like PEMDAS.

One of the Basic Math Rules You Learned In School Is Wrong

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