5/3/2023 0 Comments Google birthday surprise wheel'So I think it's important to know the context of the question. 'In general, mathematical notation can have multiple meanings,' he said. If you use PEMDAS, the answer is 9,' he said. 'We should remember this question actually went viral years ago because two calculators gave different answers. Presh Talwalkar, who created the YouTube video from which last week's puzzle came, agreed that the solution is not black and white. Strogatz pointed to that need to clear up any misunderstanding as proof there is no one universally accepted convention. In fact, the Physical Review Letters, one of the most recognized academic journals in Physics, provides editorial direction to avoid dilemmas exactly like this. High school math students may recall that electronic calculators would solve most problems accurately, but that for PEMDAS-type questions they would often apply operations in an order that would produce answers teachers consider incorrect. Strogatz pointed out another programming language, Julia, that is capable of applying the second approach which considers implicit multiplication. It's like it's designed to maximize confusion,' said Steven Strogatz, a math professor at Cornell University who has written about this type of equation before. 'You have to admire the cunning of whatever little devil created them,' he added. That's because, while the principles of math aren't subject to interpretation, the symbols invented to describe it are. Unfortunately, you might not be satisfied with the answer - which is that there is no 'objectively' correct solution. ![]() ![]() Most importantly, we wanted to find out once and for all who is right. ![]() The story's most popular comment said the answer is ‘Absolutely definitely 1 and I will fight anyone who says otherwise’.ĭ spoke to math experts to understand how algebra rage could become a topic so polarizing that people were willing to fight over it. Last week a seemingly simple math problem caused deep division among readers, igniting an argument so furious that it resembled an angry political debate.Ī British mathematician and TV host, Carol Vorderman, was irate enough to take to Twitter to call it an ‘attempt to alter the truth/rules of algebra’ and demand an apology to all math teachers.
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