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 :)
There aren’t two different sets of rules. There’s the simple model that’s commonly understood and taught to kids, and there’s the real world where you have context and the dynamics of a conversation and years of experience with communication. One is well defined, the other isn’t.
Them asking me to solve the arithmetic problem is condescending, yes.
My response didn’t say “anyone who disagrees with the convention is stupid.” Here’s condescension for you: please don’t make your reading level my problem. What I said was, there’s an unambiguous way to parse the expression according to the commonly understood order of operations, but it is atypical to pay that much attention to the order of operations in practice. If you think that’s a value judgment, that’s on you-- I was very clear in my example about capitalization, “strictly adhering to the conventional order of operations” is something reasonable people often just don’t care about.
And that simple model, well-defined model didn’t properly account for juxtaposition, which is how different fields have ended up with two different ways of interpreting it, i.e. strong vs. weak juxtaposition.
In the real world you simply wouldn’t write any equation out in such a way as to allow misinterpretation like this, but that’s ignoring the elephant in the room…
Which is that the reason viral problems like this still come about and why @wischi went through the effort of writing a rather detailed blog on this is because the order of operations most people are taught doesn’t cover juxtaposition.
Considering your degree specialisation is in solving arithmetic problems, I don’t see the issue with them asking you to put your money where your mouth is and spit out a number if it’s so easy.
Ironic that you tell me to check my reading comprehension right after you misquote me, but nonetheless that is the impression your responses have given off - and you haven’t done anything so far to dispel that impression.
Yes, and the question everyone is asking you is what is that unambiguous way? Which side of weak or strong juxtaposition do you come out on?
The value judgement was actually more to do with your choice of example, and how you applied that example to this debate. It gave me the distinct impression that you view this debate as not worth having, as anybody who does juxtaposition differently from you is wrong out the gate - and again, your further responses only reinforce my impression of you.
The order of operations rules do cover it. Did you not notice that the OP never referenced a single Maths textbook? Because, had that been done, the whole house of cards would’ve fallen down. See my Fact Check posts doing exactly that.
No, that’s just not what happened. “Strong juxtaposition,” while well-defined, is a post-hoc rationalization. Meaning in particular that people who believe that this expression is best interpreted with “strong juxtaposition” don’t really believe in “strong juxtaposition” as a rule. What they really believe is that communication is subtle and context dependent, and the traditional order of operations is not comprehensive enough to describe how people really communicate. And that’s correct.
My degree specialization is in algebraic topology.
The issue is that this question disregards and undermines my point and asks me to pick a side, arbitrarily, that (as I’ve already explained) I don’t actually believe in.
I didn’t misread, you’re in denial.
Hopefully by this point in the comment you understand that I don’t believe the question makes sense.
Again, that’s your fault-- you’ve clearly misinterpreted what I said. If I didn’t think this conversation was worth having I wouldn’t be responding to you.
I think you’re putting the cart before the horse here - there is definitely a communication issue around juxtaposition, but you’re acting as though strong juxtaposition is some kind of social commentary on the standard order of operations rather than the reality that it is an interpretation that arose due to ambiguity, just as weak juxtaposition did.
If it were people just trying to make a point, then why would it be so widely used and most scientific calculators are designed to use it, or allow its use. This debate exists because so many people ascribe to one or the other without thinking.
One - that does sound kind of cool
Two - You still have a mathematics degree do you not? You said this was an easy “unambiguous” problem to solve, so I don’t see how you’re prohibited from solving it…
God saying stuff like that, you sound just like an enlightened centrist…
Anyways, even if you don’t want to comment on the strong vs. weak juxtaposition debate, unless you simply intend on never solving any equation with implicit multiplication by juxtaposition ever again, then you must have a way of interpreting it.
That is what you’re being asked to disclose, since you seem to be very certain that there is a correct way of resolving this. You’ve brought the question upon yourself.
If you don’t want to take a side, simply saying the rules are ambiguous and technically both positions are correct depending on what field you’re in is also a valid position…
But denying the problem all together is not productive.
In the first place I don’t think you’ve proven me wrong. As far as I can tell your comments still boil down to that you think the whole debate is wrong, and that engaging in the debate is dumb.
But I can say for certain that you either misread or deliberately misconstrued at least part of my reply, because when responding to me you removed the “you follow” from it, which changes the interpretation.
If you think that wasn’t what I said, feel free to go back and look.
I understand you don’t believe the question makes sense, you’ve said that enough times…
But I’ll just refer you to my earlier comment - unless you intend on never solving any equation involving implicit multiplication ever again, then you must ascribe to one way or the other of resolving it.
Then tell me how I’ve misinterpreted what you said, because I stick by what I said as far as your example goes.
Your choice of example is not only a much more clear cut issue, being that most kids are taught by primary school (or the US equivalent) how and where to capitalise their letters, and to me it also demonstrates that you’ve not understood that the whole reason this debate is a thing is directly because there’s no “wrong way” of doing this.
I understand you see this conversation with me as worth having, but I suspect this is more to do with wanting to resolve this conversation in your favour than it is to do with the underlying debate.
They don’t. They use The Distributive Law and Terms.