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PEMDAS is technically correct, but morally wrong (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by Chainweasel@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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If we're supposed to be able to understand math as easily as a language, we should be able to read it from left to right like a language.
Yes, I know there's lots other languages that go right to left or top to bottom, but the point is you don't have to go jumping around the page or sentence figuring out which word should be read first based on which characters it contains.
We put the first word first, then the second word second, etc.
Why can't we just write equations in the order they were meant to be solved?

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[-] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 9 months ago

My guess is that in real world applications, it makes more sense to think about things in terms of multiplying values together and then adding the total. Like if you have a list of products, with prices and quantities for each, to get the total value you multiply each quantity by its price and then add them all together.

this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
-36 points (21.9% liked)

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