this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by wischi@programming.dev to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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https://zeta.one/viral-math/

I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.

It's about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it's worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I'm probably biased because I wrote it :)

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[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 6 months ago

implicit multiplication

There's no such thing as "implicit multiplication"

Some place it above explicit multiplication and division,

Which is correct, seeing as how we're solving brackets, and brackets always come first.

But if you place it as equal to it’s explicit counterparts, then you’d sweep left to right giving you an answer of 9

Which is wrong.

Since those are both valid interpretations of the order of operations

No, they're not. Treating brackets as, you know, brackets, is the only valid interpretation. "Multiplication" refers literally to multiplication signs, of which there are none in this problem.

But in reality nobody would write an equation like this

Yes they would. a(b+c) is the standard way to write a factorised term.