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I've asked Math PhDs, Math Masters, and dozens of engineers.
Only three people said 288 (my 6th grade daughter, her teacher, and this chick at work with a masters in math). All the engineers, the math PhD said 2. (I said 2 myself.)
Think about that. Think about sitting around a conference room table at a technical meeting and a bunch of America's best and brightest immediately think the answer is 2. Think about potentially bad designs based on this very common yet simple error. Mind Boggling.
Almost everyone sees the division sign as separating a numerator of 48 and a denominator of the product of 2 and 12. But that's not what that equation translates to.
Just write out all numbers in fractions. Do that and you can't mess it up. Otherwise, it is simply an issue of order of operations to which people are violating when they get 2.
I started reading the beginning of this thread and got fed up with how so many people were attacking others when they came up with a specific answer (for example if you answered 2, 288 whatever you're an idiot).
Everyone for the most part is coming up with different answers because we were taught different ways of how to handle this equation. I bet you poll 400 Math teachers from Elementery, Middle, and HS all on this question and the disparity of answers you'll get is what we see on this thread.
Other than in math class, I don't ever see coming across this equation for something practical in real life and if I did, that equation wouldn't look like that...there would be more parentheses or something to distinguish it better so there's no ambiguity.
And if you come across it in math class...which likely the is the only place you'll come across this then, if you want to get credit for doing it right, you do it the way your math teacher taught you...otherwise if you think the teacher is wrong then more power to you....you just won't get credit for doing it your way whether it is right or wrong.
I started reading the beginning of this thread and got fed up with how so many people were attacking others when they came up with a specific answer (for example if you answered 2, 288 whatever you're an idiot).
Everyone for the most part is coming up with different answers because we were taught different ways of how to handle this equation. I bet you poll 400 Math teachers from Elementery, Middle, and HS all on this question and the disparity of answers you'll get is what we see on this thread.
Other than in math class, I don't ever see coming across this equation for something practical in real life and if I did, that equation wouldn't look like that...there would be more parentheses or something to distinguish it better so there's no ambiguity.
And if you come across it in math class...which likely the is the only place you'll come across this then, if you want to get credit for doing it right, you do it the way your math teacher taught you...otherwise if you think the teacher is wrong then more power to you....you just won't get credit for doing it your way whether it is right or wrong.
If people were taught any other way than the correct way (as is easily shown with converting everything to a fraction or using the order of operations), then they were taught wrong.
There is no other way to do this. There is simply the right way, and the wrong way.
Now certainly, you can object to the form it is in and say it is misleading to which confuses people if they are used to seeing things a certain way, but that doesn't change the fact that they are doing the equation wrong. There is no room for compromise here, this is an issue of logical order and process to which by doing it the wrong way is completely invalid.
The problem here is that people are forgetting that a whole number is simply a ratio of value, a faction in itself. When one applies such to the equation, it can not be done wrong.
48/1 * 1/2 = 48/2. Understand?
Now break everything apart in such a fashion and only do simple steps.
48/1 * 1/2 * (9/1 +3/1)
48/1 * 1/2 * 12/1 Multiply the numertors and denominators across (simple fractions).
596/2 half of 596 is 288.
There is no other way to do this. The reason people get 2 is because they improperly multiply a numerator with a denominator violating the most basic principals.
It can never be two, ever.
The reason we follow a precise aspect of an order of operations is not because it is some stupid formula process we do, but because it is a proof of process to which follow the basic principals to which the numbers exist in relation to each other.
There is no compromise here. Everyone getting 2 is wrong here, not because I say so, but because it is shown so by the very basic math.
Here is a site that gives a basic explanation of the order of operations using many examples:
It's whatever 24*12 is. WAIT let me get my calculator...
288
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