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48/2(9+3) Discuss

arg-fallbackName="nemesiss"/>
i've seen a similar one to that, the problem lies in dividing or multiplying first.
it can be either; (48/2)*12 or 48/(2*12) because it was written so poorly, it's undecided.

edit: just found a 3rd option

2(9+3) can also be rewritten as 18+6, thus changing it to 48/18+6 = 8+2/3
 
arg-fallbackName="Case"/>
This particular equation equals the short-sighted trolling attempt of an uneducated person marvelling at his own ignorance of a simple ruleset, which results from the strong desire to redeem himself of the unbearable stigma of sucking at arithmetics by means of visiting a forum different from the one where he encountered aforementioned challenge he wasn't able to solve correctly and creating an entire thread in the hope of someone failing to provide the correct answer as well so he can feel less stupid. Sorry mate, wrong forum.
 
arg-fallbackName="Welshidiot"/>
Case said:
This particular equation equals the short-sighted trolling attempt of an uneducated person marvelling at his own ignorance of a simple ruleset, which results from the strong desire to redeem himself of the unbearable stigma of sucking at arithmetics by means of visiting a forum different from the one where he encountered aforementioned challenge he wasn't able to solve correctly and creating an entire thread in the hope of someone failing to provide the correct answer as well so he can feel less stupid. Sorry mate, wrong forum.
Click to expand...
Source?
 
arg-fallbackName="Aught3"/>
Is this a troll post?

Anyway,
48/2(9+3)
24(9+3)
(24*9)+(24*3)
216+72
288

Next we'll be arguing about whether 0.999... = 1 again (it does!)
 
arg-fallbackName=")O( Hytegia )O("/>
Welshidiot said:
Case said:
This particular equation equals the short-sighted trolling attempt of an uneducated person marvelling at his own ignorance of a simple ruleset, which results from the strong desire to redeem himself of the unbearable stigma of sucking at arithmetics by means of visiting a forum different from the one where he encountered aforementioned challenge he wasn't able to solve correctly and creating an entire thread in the hope of someone failing to provide the correct answer as well so he can feel less stupid. Sorry mate, wrong forum.
Click to expand...
Source?
Click to expand...

4chan.

It's called "Bad Math" trolling.
Too bad they posted it on a forum of intellectuals who know the order of operations.
 
arg-fallbackName="Squawk"/>
So this was actually a genuine question? I thought it was a piss take...

remember kiddies, in mafs you do the subtraction, then the addition, then the division, then the multiplication, then the brackets, unless it's the third tuesday in lent (non leap year), in which case the answer is 12

##edit
Holy shit, I just googled the equation and 4chan, OMG!!!
 
arg-fallbackName="Squawk"/>
nemesiss said:
i've seen a similar one to that, the problem lies in dividing or multiplying first.
it can be either; (48/2)*12 or 48/(2*12) because it was written so poorly, it's undecided.

edit: just found a 3rd option

2(9+3) can also be rewritten as 18+6, thus changing it to 48/18+6 = 8+2/3
Click to expand...

Just as an aside, you can't do the third option here

You can write 2(9+3) as 18 + 6 (think of multiplying x(y+z)), but you can't then treat the result the way that you did (well, you can, but it's erroneous

For example

1/(-1 +1) cannot be written as 1/-1 +1/1 = 0
 
arg-fallbackName="Master_Ghost_Knight"/>
First of all it is not an equation but rather a series of operations.
If it waswriten in terms of 48/2*(9+3) there would be no ambiguities in terms of the order of operations aand the result would uniquivocaly be 288. However the lack of explicit operator generaly denotes the intention of multiplying whatever is on the right to whatever is on the left and thus cuasing a confusion to what operations are made first (and it did for many calculator manufacturers, a very good practice is to check what is the orderof operations your calculator is using and adding parentesis in order to remove ambiguities).
But formaly there isn't a seperate multiplication operation, so 48/2(9+3) is he sae as 48/2*(9+3) and therefore the right answer is 288.
To identify that the term (9+3) must multiply first the 2 then devide the 48, you must write it like this 48/(2*(9+3)) and then the answer would be 2.
I suspect most of the confusion comes from the fact that we never use this form of notation, when we write the expressions linearly the general practice is to explicitly put the multiplication, the situations where we write the expression in a compact version thus supressing the explicit multiplication the divisions comes in forms of quotients where there is no ambiguity between thins that fal on the denominator or the numerator.

Ps. And another thing, contrary to popular belief, formaly in mathematics there isn't an operation called division, division by X is by deninition the multiplication by a number that multiplied by X equals 1, and we call that number 1/X. The zero is excluded because there is no such number. ie. if you replace /2 by *0.5 you get 48*0.5(9+3)=288
 
arg-fallbackName="Your Funny Uncle"/>
Oh it's a meme.

When I was at school we'd write it as:

48
2(9+3)

or

48(9+3)
2

Which would stop any confusion.
 
arg-fallbackName="Nashy19"/>
It's popular because calculators would give different and wrong answers for it.
 
arg-fallbackName="Master_Ghost_Knight"/>
Nashy19 said:
It's popular because calculators would give different and wrong answers for it.
Click to expand...
Well it isn't surprising at all, I didn't knew about this particular form, but it is common knowledge that some claculators don't respect the orders of the operations either in this ambiguous form or more obviouse between multiplications and additions. He right way to do things is to test your calculator and parentesis are allways your friend, they don't hurt.
 
arg-fallbackName=")O( Hytegia )O("/>
Master_Ghost_Knight said:
Nashy19 said:
It's popular because calculators would give different and wrong answers for it.
Click to expand...
Well it isn't surprising at all, I didn't knew about this particular form, but it is common knowledge that some claculators don't respect the orders of the operations either in this ambiguous form or more obviouse between multiplications and additions. He right way to do things is to test your calculator and parentesis are allways your friend, they don't hurt.
Click to expand...

I have a bad habit of placing parenthesis within parenthesis within parenthesis in order to get my equation layout PERFECT.
 
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