It’s pretty common even in academic literature to treat implied multiplication as having higher precedence than explicit multiplication/division. Otherwise an expression like 1 / 2n would have to be interpreted as (1 / 2) * n rather than the more natural 1 / (2 * n).
A lot of this bullshit can be avoided with better notation systems, but calculators tend to be limited in what you can write, so meh. Unless you want to mislead people for the memes, just put parentheses around things.
The problem is whether or not that rule is taught depends on when and where you learned it. Schools only started teaching that rule relatively recently, and even then, not universally. Which of course makes for ideal engagement bait on your hellsite of choice.
the “controversy” over it isn’t recent either - we can see Lennes complaining about it more than 100 years ago! The more things change the more they stay the same (sigh).
It’s pretty common even in academic literature to treat implied multiplication as having higher precedence than explicit multiplication/division. Otherwise an expression like 1 / 2n would have to be interpreted as (1 / 2) * n rather than the more natural 1 / (2 * n).
A lot of this bullshit can be avoided with better notation systems, but calculators tend to be limited in what you can write, so meh. Unless you want to mislead people for the memes, just put parentheses around things.
The problem is whether or not that rule is taught depends on when and where you learned it. Schools only started teaching that rule relatively recently, and even then, not universally. Which of course makes for ideal engagement bait on your hellsite of choice.
Recently? The order of operations rules have been taught for more than a century (we can see them in Lennes’ letter).
Order of operations in general, yes. Implied multiplication coming before explicit multiplication/division is what’s recent.