Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Haha. One of the benefits of being a mod is that I can clean up after myself!

[Ketaru]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Hey hey, we're not done with torture yet.

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Given a = b,
(a-b) = 0
Therefore
(a+b)(a-b) = b(a-b) is true because (a+b)(0) = b(0).
Then they divide by (a-b) in both sides, which is dividing by 0, which is invalid.

[Nandito]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II


Dammit, I hate math.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

The one that really gives people cancer is 6÷2(1+2)=?

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

The one that really gives people cancer is 6÷2(1+2)=?

Please Excuse Math Dork's Sally Acorn, so we resolve the 1+2 operation first, resulting in 3.

6÷2(3)=6÷2×3

Of course, "Math Dork" is only one subject (as is Sally Acorn), so multiplication and division are on the same tier of priority. Therefore, we read left to right:

6÷2×3=3×3=9

The trick answer would've been 2, and a much more nefarious way to provoke that is to use an intentionally ambiguous "/" instead of "÷". "/" implies a fraction, so it becomes unclear whether "2(1+2)" is a single term or not (made doubly ambiguous by the implied parenthetical multiplication).

Of course, we can all just throw all logic out the window since "My Little Pony" is somehow not just a bunch of garbage shoveled upon little girls, and therefore P&¬P.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

The "trick" answer is 1, actually. Facebook tore itself in two over this stupid question, with each side claiming the answer was obvious and quoting PEMDAS at eachother. Some people thought the P meant that you distributed the 2 to the (1+2) first, which resulted in 1; others didn't recognize that M and D are actually the same step which should be evaluated from left to right and insisted on doing multiplication then division. In the end 2.6 million people correctly answered 9, but 1.8 million answered 1. It's a bit depressing, really, how poorly understood something so fundamental is.

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I've never heard of this PEMDAS.

I only had SOHCAHTOA

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

There is, of course, the problem of ambiguity in notation. If x = 1+2 then 6÷2x throws people for a loop.

---------- Post added at 09:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 PM ----------

I've never heard of this PEMDAS.

I only had SOHCAHTOA

We have SOHCAHTOA here, too. How were you taught order of operations?

Btw, is the quote selected button broken for anyone else? I think it died in Firefox 8.

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

How were you taught order of operations?

The old-fashioned way. Parentheses > all, multiplication/division before addition/subtraction. They gave us a shitload of homework until it would become second-nature.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Parenthesis
Exponents
Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction

The mnemonic I was taught is "Please excuse my dear aunt Sally."

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Btw, is the quote selected button broken for anyone else? I think it died in Firefox 8.

Works fine for me, though I can't remember which version of Firefox I'm running any more . . . I lost count, you see.

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Parenthesis
Exponents
Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction

The mnemonic I was taught is "Please excuse my dear aunt Sally."

I deduced the first part after staring at it for like 3 minutes. I thanked you for the mnemonic though. I'd heard the phrase before, but I didn't know it was a mnemonic for the order of operations.

EDIT: Thanks button works for me, as you can see.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Btw, is the quote selected button broken for anyone else? I think it died in Firefox 8.

It doesn't work in Chrome, but then it has never worked in Chrome so it's business as usual.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Yeah, I tried Chrome last week. It broke quote selected, didn't let me ctrl-I to italicize in replies, and the noscript-like plugins were a pain in the ass.