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EverCrest Message Forums » EverCrest Forums » Innoruuk's House of Ill Repute » Restore my faith in humanity
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Topic: Restore my faith in humanity
Ghost of Forums Past
Pancake
posted 08-31-2012 04:38:39 PM
The following question was asked on a facebook thread that had over 100,000 replies. Most answers are wrong.

6 - 1 x 0 + 2 ÷ 2 = ?

Please restore my faith in my own species by providing the correct answer

quote:

Rob [Last name redacted] ‎1
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Jacqueline [Last name redacted] ‎6
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Faith [Last name redacted] ‎1
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Mike [Last name redacted] ‎1
4 minutes ago · Like

Jaden [Last name redacted] ‎1
4 minutes ago · Like

Jonathan [Last name redacted] ‎0
4 minutes ago · Like

Jess [Last name redacted] ‎1 !!!!
4 minutes ago · Like

Dave [Last name redacted]‎ 1
4 minutes ago · Like

Irene [Last name redacted] ‎1
4 minutes ago · Like

Gary [Last name redacted] ‎0
4 minutes ago · Like

Sarah [Last name redacted] ‎1
4 minutes ago · Like

Sandra [Last name redacted] ‎1
4 minutes ago · Like

Khalid [Last name redacted] ‎1

O_o

Ghost of Forums Past fucked around with this message on 08-31-2012 at 04:50 PM.

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Maradon!
posted 08-31-2012 04:51:15 PM
PEMDAS

It's really not that big a deal that people get this wrong, the problem is deliberately written to be confusing and order of operations just isn't something that most people use on a daily basis.

If you wrote the problem

6 - (1 x 0) + (2 / 2) = ?

It would be no less complicated, and yet I'd suspect you would see a drastically higher ratio of correct answers (even despite the shockingly poor performance of our nationalized education system).

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nem-x
posted 08-31-2012 10:13:55 PM
please excuse my dear aunt sally
Nem-X - :kittyjig: :: THEY'RE OH SO FUZZY AND CUTE!
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Tarquinn
Personally responsible for the decline of the American Dollar
posted 09-01-2012 05:51:10 AM
Yeah, that's something [s]most[/s] many people get wrong.

Tarquinn fucked around with this message on 09-01-2012 at 05:51 AM.

~Never underestimate the power of a Dark Clown.
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Damnati
Filthy
posted 09-01-2012 02:30:14 PM
Our education system might perform poorly but you still hear PEMDAS and its mnemonic pretty much every year of high school. The problem isn't indicative of anything beyond that most people simply don't pay attention.
Love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. It is as inexorable as the tides and life and death alike follow in its wake. -Phèdre nó Delaunay, Kushiel's Chosen

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

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Delphi Aegis
Delphi. That's right. The oracle. Ask me anything. Anything about your underwear.
posted 09-01-2012 06:26:51 PM
I'm going to be anal and note that it's really PEMA, since Multiplication/division and Addition/subtraction are just inverses of each other and are performed at the same time.

Also, this is why we have parenthesis. D=

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Random Insanity Generator
Condom Ninja El Supremo
posted 09-01-2012 08:51:10 PM
Except that you make it more confusing by omitting them.

The concept that Mult/Divis are inverse forms of one another was hardly taught when I was in school, I'm sure it's not even a concept conceived of by current students. Without explicit mention in the order of operations there are going to be students who would assume that Division and Subtraction aren't bound by it or something worse.

* NullDevice kicks the server. "Floggings will continue until processing power improves!"
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"That was black magic, and it was easy to use. Easy and fun. Like Legos." -- Harry Dresden
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That's what playing Ragnarok Online taught me: There's no problem in the universe that can't be resolved by the proper application of daggers to faces.
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Peter
Pancake
posted 09-02-2012 12:39:08 PM
quote:
Damnati thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
cOur education system might perform poorly but you still hear PEMDAS and its mnemoni pretty much every year of high school. The problem isn't indicative of anything beyond that most people simply don't pay attention.

Never heard of it called that at all, Nor any mnemonic.

I learned more algabra in my chem class than actual math classes to be perfectly honest.

Graned the school system I was in also taught how to do factor trees from 3 grade on, yet vast majority of students struggled when needing to factor out equations.

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Random Insanity Generator
Condom Ninja El Supremo
posted 09-02-2012 05:11:25 PM
Canadia learns BODMAS (Parens referred to as Brackets) and England from what I understand learns BIDMAS (Parens -> Brackets, Exponents -> Indices (Orders of Powers))...

I've heard there's a different mnemonic used in certain areas of the US, but I haven't found anyone that can substantiate that. Everyone either knows PEMDAS or just remembers the order explicitly.

* NullDevice kicks the server. "Floggings will continue until processing power improves!"
-----------------------------------
"That was black magic, and it was easy to use. Easy and fun. Like Legos." -- Harry Dresden
-----------------------------------
That's what playing Ragnarok Online taught me: There's no problem in the universe that can't be resolved by the proper application of daggers to faces.
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