psoul comments on Math is not a democracy

Huh it was always pemdas in both highschool and college in new England for me.... they were also always parentheses. 'Brackets' only reffered to '[ ]' which were reserved for matrices or number sets, eg 2*[2,5,8]+2= [6,12,18]

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[–] Euphoma@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

I think canadians call ( ) brackets in math

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[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (47 children)

If you look at the arguments on math forums, you'll see that there isn't just one rule.

It is a convention, and different places teach different conventions.
Namely, some places say that PEDMAS is a very strict order. Other places say that it is PE D|M A|S, where D and M are the same level and order is left-to-right, and same with addition vs subtraction.
And others, even in this post, say it's PEMDAS, which I have heard before.

"Correct" and "incorrect" don't apply to conventions, it's simply a matter of if the people talking agree on the convention to use. And there are clearly at least three that highly educated people use and can't agree on.

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[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 0 points 10 months ago (46 children)

different places teach different conventions

But they all teach the same rules

some places say that PEDMAS is a very strict order

Which is totally fine and works

Other places say that it is PE D|M A|S,

Which is also totally fine and works

even in this post, say it’s PEMDAS

Also totally fine and works

it’s simply a matter of if the people talking agree on the convention to use

No-one has to agree on any convention - they can use whatever they want and as long as they obey the rules it will work

can’t agree on

Educated people agree that which convention you use doesn't matter.

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[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 months ago (45 children)

That's not true Here is an example:
8÷2x4
PEMDAS: 8÷2x4 = 8÷8 = 1
PEDMAS: 8÷2x4 = 4x4 = 16
PE M|D A|S: 8÷2x4 = 4x4 = 16
And thats not even getting into juxtaposition operations, where fields like physics use conventions that differ from most other field.

but you're missing the point. It could be SAMDEP and math would still work, you'd just rearrange the equation. Just like with prefix or postfix notation. The rules don't change, just the notation conventions change. But you need to agree on the notation conventions to reach the same answer.