PEMDAS is technically correct, but morally wrong

If we're supposed to be able to understand math as easily as a language, we should be able to read it from left to right like a language.
Yes, I know there's lots other languages that go right to left or top to bottom, but the point is you don't have to go jumping around the page or sentence figuring out which word should be read first based on which characters it contains.
We put the first word first, then the second word second, etc.
Why can't we just write equations in the order they were meant to be solved?

SmartmanApps ,
@SmartmanApps@programming.dev avatar

You can if you wrote everything as just addition and subtraction, but then we made some shorthand notations for that, such as 2x3=2+2+2, and so now you have to do multiplication before addition otherwise you get a wrong answer, and if you wrote all multiplications before all additions there'd still be no problem, but as someone else pointed out, there are cases where it's easier to have a different order, and so voila! Order of operations rules.

MeanEYE ,
@MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

Is it just me or people actually writing and using math daily never complain about this stuff? Only "it's been a while I forgot the rules" crowd.

Rhynoplaz ,

But it said that 98% of people will get this wrong! I have to prove to my Facebook friends that I'm smarter than them and the rules of math keep ruining it for me!!!!

Haus ,
@Haus@kbin.social avatar

PEMA is technically correct. Division and subtraction are illusions.

SmartmanApps ,
@SmartmanApps@programming.dev avatar

Actually multiplication and division are shorthand notations for addition and subtraction - e.g. 2x3=2+2+2 - so everything boils down to addition and subtraction.

droning_in_my_ears ,

Morally wrong? What does morality have to do with any of this?

This is a matter of conventions. Which way we do it doesn't actually matter that much as long as we all agree on a way. Maybe you think PEMDAS is counterintuitive, maybe others disagree. That doesn't make it morally wrong.

FiskFisk33 ,

we can if we want, its called Polish notation
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_notation

instead of x + y we write + x y
then 2 + 3 * (3 + 7) + 6 becomes + 2 + * 3 + 3 7 6

no order of operations to remember, but good luck parsing it.

olorin99 ,
@olorin99@kbin.earth avatar

Yes having equations written in a more straightforward way might make it easier for laypeople to understand but I think that the people who use their head for anything more complicated than a+b and don't just use a calculator can probably figure it out fine.

olorin99 ,
@olorin99@kbin.earth avatar

Also don't understand the "morally wrong" argument. Just because something is slightly more complicated than it could be doesn't make it "morally wrong".

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • kbinchat
  • All magazines
    •