this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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[–] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 6 days ago

Every one of these only makes me say "wouldn't it be great if we did everything with RPN"?

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 1 points 5 days ago

Ah, yes. It's only for genius.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 100 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (21 children)

I'm sure we're all geniuses here, but just in case...

Please excuse my dear aunt Sally.

Parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction.

Why? Because a bunch of dead Greeks say so!

3x3-3÷3+3

(3x3)-(3÷3)+3

9-1+3

8+3

11

[–] czardestructo@lemmy.world 93 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I guess remembering grade school order of operation means you're a guinus now? Bar has gotten pretty low...

[–] AnotherPenguin@programming.dev 28 points 1 week ago

And it will go even lower as people start relying mpre on AI...

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 25 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's the point.

Set the bar low, but just high enough that tons of people still trip over it.

Sit back and enjoy the comment wars.

The people who are confident but wrong are too proud to admit they were wrong even if they realize it, and comment angrily.

The people who are right and know why, comment for corrections and some to show off how S-M-R-T they are.

The people who are wrong but willing to accept that just have their realization and probably don't think about it again. So do the people who don't know and/or care.

But those first two groups will keep the post going in both shares and comments, because "look at all these wrong people"

It's all designed to boost engagement.

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[–] vext01@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 1 week ago

For the programmers: operator precedence.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Not a genius. But if subtraction is last, why isn't it 9-4?

[–] aliceblossom@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago

Because its not really "1 plus 3", its negative 1 plus 3 which is two. I know it seems a little weird but the minus sign is " tied" to the thing following it.

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction.

should actually be

Parenthesis, exponents, (multiplication and division), (addition and subtraction).

Addition and subtraction are given the same priority, and are done in the same step, from left to right.

It's not a great system of notation, it could be made far clearer (and parenthesis allow you to make it as clear as you like), but it's essentially the universal standard now and it's what we're stuck with.

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[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Addition/subtraction work out the same regardless of how you order the operations. If you do subtraction last you start with the original:

9-1+3

and you are adding 3 to the result of (9-1). Since you are trying to perform it before the (9-1) operation is carried out, you can add 3 to the 9:

12-1 = 11

or you can add three to the -1 and get:

9+2 = 11

You only end up with 9-4 if you were subtracting 3 rather than adding three. It all becomes more obvious if you read the original as:

9 + (-1) + 3

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[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 93 points 1 week ago (10 children)

This kind of problem falls under "communicating badly and acting smug when misunderstood". Use parenthesis and the problem goes away.

https://xkcd.com/169/

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[–] nuko147@lemm.ee 45 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Boomers and Xgens need to prove, that they remember basic school math in FB lmao.

[–] Duranie@leminal.space 40 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Please don't include X with the boomers. Since we stepped into the real world and realized it functions completely differently than what we were raised to believe, life's just been a neverending string of "wait, that was wrong too?" We just want to survive another day under the radar.

Sorry fellow X'rs for publicly acknowledging our existence. Hopefully this post doesn't get any upvotes. *Pulls blanket back over my head.

[–] mjhelto@lemm.ee 17 points 1 week ago

The first rule of gen-x is you don't talk about gen-x!

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[–] thedruid@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Gen xers? Don't irk them. They're not noticing you right now.

Very independent, and cranky generation.

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[–] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 38 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I was good at math and it was one of my favorite core subjects in school, so I know I'm a weirdo but... I never understood how people couldn't understand basic PEMDAS/BEDMAS/Whatever-the-fuck-your-country-calls-it.

Obviously these problems are shitty engagement bait because they don't use parentheses, but still, seeing people fuck up the fact that Multiplication AND Division occur at the same time, and then the next step is Addition AND Subtraction just stupefies me.

Like, did you sleep through 4 years of elementary school to miss that fact??? Even in middle school pre-algebra teachers still did PEMDAS refreshers. I get that once I get out of college I'm probably gonna forget half the pre-calc shit I learned because I won't need it, and I'm not being drilled on it everyday like people in school are, but PEMDAS is a fundamental and basic daily life skill that everyone should know...

I really wish we gave a fuck about US education.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I never understood how people couldn’t understand basic PEMDAS/BEDMAS/Whatever-the-fuck-your-country-calls-it.

There's no "whatever-the-fuck-your-country-calls-it", the US is the only country using it, and only up to high school. At least I'm not seeing any papers coming out of the US relying on it so at some point they're dropping it and do what everyone else is doing: Write equations such that you don't need a left-to-right rule to disambiguate things. Also, using multiplication by juxtaposition (2x + 4x^2^).

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[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Anyone on Facebook that attempts to answer this or engage within its comments has already failed the test.

Anyone on Facebook ~~that attempts to answer this or engage within its comments~~ has already failed the test.

[–] aMockTie@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

"Hey, this is Presh Talwalkar.

Discussion of a brief history of this viral math problem, followed by explanations of common incorrect answers. Ultimately followed by brief discussion on the order of operations, concluding in a final example that equals 11

And that's the answer. Thank you so much for making us one of the best communities on YouTube, where we solve the world's problems, one video at a time."

[–] superminerJG@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (3 children)

question: is there something more than the expression evaluating to 11?

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[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago

This is the kind of post designed to invoke a reaction. Facebook's and pretty much every other algorithm driven social media is designed to promote posts that have high interaction. So a post that invokes lots of negative reactions gets lots of promotion. Hence the downfall of modern society.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Arguing about maths is like dancing to architecture.

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[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (3 children)

So order of operations is hard?

[–] Zenith@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago

Yeah and I’m tired of pretending it’s not!

[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Next they're going to have an epic debate on whether work done by the system is positive or negative and are all going to feel really smart and passionate about it. Like one of those Science vs Religion debate clubs from the 2000s

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (13 children)

The issue normally with these "trick" questions is the ambiguous nature of that division sign (not so much a problem here) or people not knowing to just go left to right when all operators are of the same priority. A common mistake is to think division is prioritised above multiplication, when it actually has the same priority. Someone should have included some parenthesis in PEDMAS aka. PE(DM)(AS) 😄

Another common issue is thinking "parentheses go first" and then beginning by solving the operation beside them (mostly multiplication). The point being that what's inside the parentheses goes first, not what's beside them.

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[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So if it's not really an event

And it's not really a math problem

What the hell is it??

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 15 points 1 week ago

Engagement bait

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[–] maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone 12 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] cabbage@piefed.social 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not strictly a scam, but there's a little money to be made creating viral content on Facebook. They receive a tiny portion of the ad revenue from Facebook when they generate engagement.

It's just Facebook sucking really.

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