Poll: 6÷2(1+2)

6/2(1+2) = ?

  • 9

    Votes: 516 68.9%
  • 1

    Votes: 233 31.1%

  • Total voters
    749
Caporegime
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I didn't ask how I asked why. Show me the axiom which states we must "start at the left and finish at the right". Or did you just make that up/remember it from primary school?

Convention. Established long, long ago and taught by math teachers for decades...

You perform * & / in the order in which they occur, left to right. You read single-line equations left to right.

Now you're going to argue semantics aren't you :/
 
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Soldato
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Convention. Established long, long ago and taught by math teachers for decades...

I asked for the axiom and you give me primary school maths teachers? They also teach kids that division by 0 is impossible yet when you get to degree level you discover limits of equations.
 
Caporegime
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I asked for the axiom and you give me primary school maths teachers? They also teach kids that division by 0 is impossible yet when you get to degree level you discover limits of equations.

OK, your turn.

Educate me as to when left-to-right in-order interpretation of single-line equations is not correct?

With axioms?
 
Associate
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I asked for the axiom and you give me primary school maths teachers? They also teach kids that division by 0 is impossible yet when you get to degree level you discover limits of equations.

Limits is not dividing by zero - it's finding what the answer tends towards as you divide by numbers tending towards 0 - dividing by 0 is impossible.
 
Caporegime
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As for dividing by zero, as far as I'm concerned it's meaningless. In my work if you're dividing by zero you're doing it wrong, very wrong. Sure you might come up with an axiom that defines it, but who honestly is interested in dividing anything by zero?

Seems to be a bit of a disconnect there between theoretical maths and practical maths, if you're telling me that somebody has been working on an answer to dividing things by zero...
 
Caporegime
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You're asking me to prove the lack of existence of something? Provide your evidence and I will attempt to refute it.

Yeah I'm not playing that game buddy.

If I have to side with you or a primary-grade math teacher I'll take the math teacher, thanks.

At least they know 6/2(1+2) is not equal to 1 :D :D :D
 
Soldato
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Limits is not dividing by zero - it's finding what the answer tends towards as you divide by numbers tending towards 0 - dividing by 0 is impossible.

My point is that primary school teachers will say "no no no, dividing by zero is impossible, you simply can't do it!" Whereas at degree level you go into further detail and view things more objectively and of course discover the importance of singularities.
 
Soldato
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no they arent. b modifies what is in the bracket not a/b; otherwise you would need to write it (a/b)(x+y)

ie:

a
______
b(x+y)

I do like people being emphatic.

Especially when they're wrong.

The correct answer is that there are two correct answers because of a (suspected deliberate) ambiguity in the question. It's like that picture of an old woman/young woman, you can see both, but the correct answer is "it depends".

It's interesting to see that (in general) the more educated the people answering, the more emphatic they are that they are right, and the more unable they are to see the problem in any other way.

:)
 
Soldato
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I asked for the axiom and you give me primary school maths teachers? They also teach kids that division by 0 is impossible yet when you get to degree level you discover limits of equations.


When you take limits you define you are arbitrarily close to the limit but not at the limit.

What axiom explains dividing by zero?

edit:

nvm I'll read this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero#In_higher_mathematics

edit2: nope that doesn't explain it. So I go back to you.
 
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Associate
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It's interesting to see that (in general) the more educated the people answering, the more emphatic they are that they are right, and the more unable they are to see the problem in any other way.

:)

That is exactly the opposite of what is happening. To quote vonhelmet:

I'm enjoying the disparity in the arguments:

Camp 9: It's 9 you uneducated morons! Any fool with a D in GCSE maths knows this!

Camp 1: It could be either, but if a problem like this appeared in my degree level maths the answer would probably be 1.
 
Caporegime
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And therein lies the problem.

A number very close to zero is not zero as others have said. x/0 *is* meaningless.

And I suspect you're trolling anyhow. Or attempting to discredit anyone giving the right answer but lacking a math degree, because you have a math degree.
 
Caporegime
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OK, off the top of my head, I'll elaborate for gambitt.

You cannot take anything that exists (>0) and divide it such that it doesn't exist (==0).

x0 == 0. Which is to say, any number of 0s are still 0.

If you divide something into units of 0, and reach an answer, then the sum of all the units will be 0.

a/0 = y. y0 = a = 0.

Therefore you cannot divide anything existing by zero.
 
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