I have seen several people saying the order operation is
- Brackets/Parenthesis
- Orders (roots and powers)
- Divisions
- Multiplications
- Subtractions
- Additions
But I was taught it as
- Brackets/Parenthesis
- Roots and powers, left to right (independently of the exact operation)
- Divisions and multiplications, left to right (independently of the exact operation)
- Subtractions and additions, left to right (independently of the exact operation)
So, what order were you taught and/or use today?
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I learned, “Please excuse my dear aunt Sally.”
Parentheses Exponents Multiplication Division Addition Subtraction
Yeah, differentiating between multiplications vs. divisions and additions vs. subtractions doesn’t make sense, because they’re the same thing respectively, just written differently.
When you divide by 3, you can also multiply by ⅓.
When you subtract 7, you can also add -7.There is one quirk to be aware of, though. When people notate a division with a long horizontal line, that implies parentheses around both of the expressions, top and bottom.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is how we remember it as either BEDMAS or PEMDAS, but not PEDMAS or BEMDAS. The order of M and D are tied to whether we use the term brackets or parentheses. BEMDAS sounds very wrong to me
Why? Why would this be important?
It’s not important, just an observation of spoken language. Similar to the order of adjectives or how there’s usually a “correct” sounding way to list two names.
If anything, it might explain why people are tied to a particular order of multiplication and division
FWIW they all sound equally ok to me. I never learned any of these acronyms, tho I’ve come across them on occasion, and if someone had presented any of the 4 as THE acronym for this I’d have believed them.
I think because I read about this riddle in the past, I might have built up some associations myself. So maybe there’s actually nothing there 😄
If there is confusion, you wrote it wrong. Don’t inline it, use a proper equation in whatever software you’re using. If you need to inline it, go heavy on parentheses.
BOPS
Brackets Orders Products Sums
In order, left to right
I only write math in the context of programming languages. I prefer ones without order of operations. Rebol, (Polish notation), Factor/Forth (Postfix notation), smalltalk, (left-to-right) apl (right-to-left), etc.
In short, it doesn’t matter as long as your audience understands you.
When you get to doing division and multiplication, it can make sense to look at what is being done to what and see if operations cancel out or simplify. E.g. if you are multiplying by 6 and dividing by 2 and bother operations are going to affect the same number/group/etc. there is no need to do both operations, you just multiply by 3 since that’s ultimately what you are doing. Really, any place you can simplify operations, do that. Same goes for addition/subtraction. The Commutative Property is really handy for making hard math easier.
BEDMAS cuz all y’all “parentheses” people are way too hoity toity and they’re called Brackets, y’all
Edit: this is a shitpost. The downvotes are deserved.
