this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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6÷2(1+2) (programming.dev)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

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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[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Just write it better.

6/(2(1+2))

Or

(6/2)(1+2)

That's how it works in the real world when you're using real numbers to calculate actual things anyways.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

But how would that go viral?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Just write it better.

6/(2(1+2))

If you really wanted extra brackets it'd be 6/(2)(1+2). Of course, since there's only 1 term in the first brackets they're redundant, hence 6/2(1+2) is the fully simplified form, and is the way it's written in Maths textbooks.