The Order of Operations is Wrong
Morally Wrong, that is... MinutePhysics is on Google+ - http://bit.ly/qzEwc6 And facebook - http://facebook.com/minutephysics And twitter - @minutephysics Minute Physics provides an energetic...
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If you went to elementary school in the United States (or much of the rest of the world)you almost certainly learned about something boringly called the "order of operations"- a set of rules for whether or not you should do multiplication before addition or additionbefore subtraction to get the right answer on your math test.Except, you don't always get the right answer, or even, one answer - I mean, is 8-2+1 equalto 5 or 7? and is 6/3/3 equal to two thirds or six? - the problem is, focusing on theorder of operations can lead to ambiguity and obscures the real, underlying, and oftenbeautiful mathematics.A mathematician will tell you that 8-2+1 is really 8+(-2)+1, which is unambiguously equalto 7, even though the so-called "order of o...
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If you went to elementary school in the United States (or much of the rest of the world)you almost certainly learned about something boringly called the "order of operations"- a set of rules for whether or not you should do multiplication before addition or additionbefore subtraction to get the right answer on your math test.Except, you don't always get the right answer, or even, one answer - I mean, is 8-2+1 equalto 5 or 7? and is 6/3/3 equal to two thirds or six? - the problem is, focusing on theorder of operations can lead to ambiguity and obscures the real, underlying, and oftenbeautiful mathematics.A mathematician will tell you that 8-2+1 is really 8+(-2)+1, which is unambiguously equalto 7, even though the so-called "order of o...
