this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Sadly, this is actually true, people actually don't know simple math and operation order.
And they ask me why I hold such low expectations for the future 🤦.
To be fair, it’s completely arbitrary, and all of math would be easier to understand, although slightly more verbose, if the only rule of order of operations is “always use parentheses to denote order, there are no implied parentheses”.
lazy mfs from centuries ago who were mortified by the thought of having to write
(and)too much (lord what i wouldn’t give to hop in a time machine and show them lisp) should not be dictating our mathematical notation in this century. Explicit grouping is always more obvious to the reader.That's true, but it's not that hard either.
Even then it’s still a quick mistake to make. If I’m not paying attention I could easily make a mistake like this, because I’m used to reading things left to right.
I would love to watch people who say that diagram a sentence, per 10th grade English class rules.
(For the record, PEMDAS).
Is PEMDAS anything like PEBKAC?
It's also not that hard to just write it in a far less confusing way in many cases.
In this simple case,
4 x 2 + 2or2 x 4 + 2would have been superior choices because both people reading left to right and people following pemdas correctly would get it right, and only people mis-remembering pemdas would be confused.Except if you don't know the full equation when you're starting to write it. Most real world applications have you piecing things together as you go. Stopping and reordering it in an arbitrary "more readable" order is wasted work
Well, yes, but as you are working on an equation for yourself to work through a problem, it really doesn’t matter. you can intentionally break PEMDAS for your own notation.
When communicating the equation to others, though, doing your best to make it comprehensible to people of all skill levels is absolutely not wasted work. Reformatting equations so the largest number of people comprehend what that means is absolutely valuable.
Edit: hell, as long as you’re consistent with your personal notation, you could get anarchistic about it and use SADMEP notation.