Kenneth Chang

There is no ambiguity about this. Just a lot of people who don’t know the rules.

Why should you have to remember stupid rules for a simple calculation like this? If you meant 8 — (2 + 2) 2 that’s what you should have written. The other form is just meant as a gotcha by being intentionally ambiguous.

Why bother to spell things correctly? Why bother to use proper grammar? Any of those can be called arbitrary, stupid rules. There's no real absolute reason to do anything one way or the other than to simplify communication, and the same goes for PEMDAS.

We put people on the moon with PEMDAS. We created artificial intelligence with PEMDAS. It’s more important that anyone seems to understand.

“We go to the moon not because it is easy but because we have been drilled in PEMDAS! We will do this and all the other things like 8 ÷ 2(2+2) = ?”

Never said it was a pretty math problem, or that any professional should ever write an expression like that. Just that there is still only one solution, when written in one line like it is. No matter how confused people are about it.

If it’s pointless and useless, the answer to a “gotcha” question does not matter. You have your own blind assumptions, namely that all that matters is how it translates into a single line of computer code.

You know, is it customary now in @nytscience to open an article talking about common ignorance and misconceptions, and besides NOT informing or clarifying what those are, to actively insult people for their interest? Mr. Chang has tweeted and snarked a lot and said nothing.