Attention mathematicians: Help

[pm01]

Interesting debate on physics.com

What's your the answer?

48/2(9+3)

[quinn14]

I will make my guess as 288. I'm sure it's much more complicated than that though. But, hey, I did get a C+ in trigonometery back in the day.

[vaisforlovers]

Has to be 288.

[Gold]

288 fo sho...

[WhippetGrappler]

This could be 2 different answers depending on how you see it.

48
--- (9+3) = 288
2

However if you see if as:

48
---------- = 2
2 (9+3)

hard to tell which way it is expressing it.

[Snackem]

You'll all nerds.

[M Richardson]

PEDMAS is the order of operation. Parentheses, Exponents, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction. 48/2(9+3) becomes 48/2(12). Next step is division (there are no exponents) so our problem becomes 24(12). The last step (for this problem) is the multiplication, so the answer is 288.
Jeez, guys, it's only been 45 years since high school algebra. It seems like it was just yesterday. Of course, I can't remember what I had for breakfast . . . .

[pm01]

Hi M Richardson.

Regarding PEDMAS, isn't it actually parenthethis, exponents, then (moving left to right in arrival sequence) multiplication or division then (moving left to right in arrival sequence) addition or subtraction.

Since multiplication and division are at the same level and addition and subtraction are at the same (but lower) level, PEDMAS could be PEDMSA or PEMDAS or PEMDSA?

[Spider]

2. For it to be 288, there would have to be a space between the 2 and the (9+3) to indicate that the entire fraction and not just the 2 is being multiplied by (9+3).