הארכיון של טליה

Originally published on 2020-10-08

On mathematics outside of school, or why the 8÷2(2+2) is the harmless meme I hate the most

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The 8÷2(2+2) meme is ambiguous. Period. Both interpretations are valid, and they give different answers.

The reason for that is not only that the order of operations is taught differently in different places, but that the order of operations is 100%, completely and truly arbitrary. We could, with the same legitimacy, have decided that 2+3×2 is 10 rather than 8. We humankind as a collective just settled on what's most comfortable to us as a whole.

The whole concept of mathematical symbols is relatively new. Pythagoras didn't solve equations, he drew circles in the sand. Fibonacci didn't use algebraic symbols, he used words. And the order of operations didn't bother any of them, because it was obvious from context. Nowadays we use symbols as a shorthand, and order of operations as a shorthand for a shorthand. But order of operations isn't a mathematical truth given to us by the gods, but rather an agreement we made within ourselves to remove as much parentheses as reasonably we could. When you deal with maths in reality, you'll never enounter a calculation like 8÷2(2+2) out of the blue. You will always have more context to help you determine which one is it.

And that is why it is the harmless meme I hate the most.

נכתב על ידי טליה, ״הלוחמת בטרפיות״. @yuvalne@tooot.im פוסט זה הוא חלק מסדרת הארכיון. ניתן למצוא פוסטים חדשים יותר בקישור הזה.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0