Ummm

[Solarflare]

This is appearantly a meme :/, so what is the answer 48÷2(9+3)

[stormcrow]

288. Order of operations. Always solve the expressions in parenthesis first. What is the point of this thread exactly?

[Solarflare]

appearantly some people say the answer is 2. I wanted to see if anyone says the answer is 2.

[Puffin]

[Did the calculations wrong the first time around] It is 288! xD

[Seroquel]

The answer is 2.

[Solarflare]

when i saw seroquel i so 100% knew i would see 2 with 1 vote when i clicked it :/ edit: so how is it 2?

[Puffin]

Order of operations --> BEDMAS 48÷2(9+3) 48÷2(12) <-- brackets first. (B) 24(12) <-- the two operations left are division and multiplication, whereas division comes first in BEDMAS. The remaining brackets count for M, not B, because there is nothing inside them. = 288 Tada!

[Solarflare]

actually, DM and AS you do in order from left to right, not in D first and M second. The answer is still 288, just thought i'd point that out.

[Arra]

Alright, as someone who has moved beyond Calc 3 I think I should know something about basic algebra! The problem is that there is information missing in the question. It might be either, depending on what was intended. BEDMAS is a bit misleading, because the DM can be reversed, as can the AS. Division and multiplication have the same precedence. You should be able to do them in either order. Many people know this, and that's why some people are saying 2. In fact, it's the people who know that division and multiplication really have the same precedence that are more likely to make the mistake. That is why in regular math courses, past grade 5 or so, you write the division symbol as a horizontal line with a numerator and denominator. It would be obvious what was meant if it were written in this way. Does 48÷2(9+3) mean: 48 -------- 2(9+3) or does it mean 48 --- (9 + 3) 2 ? It just isn't clear here. Either answer is correct.

[Original Poster]

2 bitch. All complexities are manifestations of simplicities on a less specific level. (Please rebuttal)

[Solarflare]

Alright, as someone who has moved beyond Calc 3 I think I should know something about basic algebra! The problem is that there is information missing in the question. It might be either, depending on what was intended. BEDMAS is a bit misleading, because the DM can be reversed, as can the AS. Division and multiplication have the same precedence. You should be able to do them in either order. Many people know this, and that's why some people are saying 2. In fact, it's the people who know that division and multiplication really have the same precedence that are more likely to make the mistake. you do them in left to right, which is why there is only one answer, 288. edit: in the grades when you learn BEDMAS, why do you think when teachers marked tests that had questions like these, there was only 1 right answer?

[Arra]

That might be right. But the DM precedence is something that is dropped in education early on. For the purposes of most math, we are supposed to consider division and multiplication to be of equal precedence. The ÷ symbol just isn't used. The division symbol just isn't written out like that, because that would confuse things if we had to think about the precedence of them.

[Solarflare]

yeah i know, so it would actually go like this 48 --- (9+3) 2

[Sornaensis]

How is this confusing at all.

[Spartiate]

How is this confusing at all. Math fun but hard

[Original Poster]

Wait what math

[stormcrow]

I hate to break it to you guys but the answer is unequivocally 288, period. Yes you do multiply/divide, add/subtract from left to right but you always get rid of parenthesis, exponents and roots first. However you can also solve the problem like this: 48/2 (9+3) 1) If you solve it from left to right ignoring the parenthesis you get this: 24(9+3) 2) Using the Distributive property of Multiplication you get this: 24*9+24*3 216+72=288 You still get 288 no matter what. There is no way around it.

[Arra]

People are getting 2 this way: 48 / 2(9+3) 48 / 2(12) 48 / 24 2

[stormcrow]

People are getting 2 this way: 48 / 2(9+3) 48 / 2(12) 48 / 24 2 Strange. Nevertheless: 48 / 2(9+3) 1) 48 / 2(12) 2) 48 / 24 =2 1) Ok this follows the order of operations. 2)This is where it gets messed up because they are solving the expression from right to left when it should be left to right. I'm almost certain that the answer is 288 but I am no where near as good at maths as Xei and PhilosopherStoned I would be interested in what they have to say on the matter.

[mooseantlers]

ANSWER THIS /me unzips pants.

[Erii]

[Arra]

At first I thought it could be either, as I explained in my above post. What I conclude now is that, it is 288. Because with the precedence rules, division comes first. I looked it up to confirm it. But, this stumps even people in university level math courses because we stopped using the ÷ symbol years ago. When something like 48 --- 12 2 appears, there's no confusion about which comes first. Either can be done first, and the rule is that the 12 must be multiplied by the 48 if the multiplication is to be done first. In the original equation, it almost looks like the 12 and 2 are supposed to be multiplied first. It reminds me a bit of the situation that still stumped me occasionally until a couple years ago: 7 - 2 + 3 Since I had memorized the fact years ago that subtraction and addiction had the same precedence, I mistakenly thought a few times that I could do it either way and could rewrite it like 7 - (2 + 3) It was pretty stupid. The precedence is the same, but in that case you're supposed to include the negative sign on the 2. So it would be right to change it to 7 + (-2 + 3)

[tommo]

This is exactly why maths is fucking shit if you're not applying it to something. I always thought stuff like "Why is the 9+3 in brackets in the first place?" "Why should I do that first even though it's addition?" If you actually are trying to figure out something, you will obviously know the order in which to do the equation.

[Sornaensis]

Guys, this is perfectly cut and dry: Shit Notation: 48÷2(9+3) Re-write as: 48 * (1/2) * (9+3) 48 * (1/2) * (12) Now it doesn't matter how you do it, becuz multiplication.

[nina]

I initially got 2, and according to my graphing calculator...the answer is 2. Check for yourselves. You only get 288 if you write it this way: 48/2x(9+3) =288 instead of just 48/2(9+3) = 2 I'm not sayin the answer is 2. But it's 2.