Kenneth Chang

I agree it’s pedantic AF, but you shouldn’t soft-pedal a ‘both sides have their point’ argument because the ‘controversy’ is driven exclusively by ignorance. Professionals and higher ed consistently prescribe how to handle this. We really need to be on the same pg on this stuff.

If you read my essay, it’s exactly the professionals and higher ed who are exasperated by people slavishly using PEMDAS without understanding why or if it makes sense.

What are the reasons and why does it make sense? I'll admit I really don't know the answers to either of those, and I mainly use it out of convention so that I can figure out what a badly written bit of code will do. Your article doesn't get into that.

The conventions of PEMDAS are fine and indeed essential for performing calculations. The equation in question is deliberately constructed to mislead people to do the "wrong" thing. There's no there there.

That's great, but you really do have me wondering: WHY does PEMDAS make sense? You've raised the question (by pointing out our ignorance), so why did a bunch of STEM guys at some conference somewhere many, many years ago decide this was the way to go?

It works by definition. If there were no pre-defined order of operations, you would have throw parentheses everywhere to show the intended order of operations. What PEMDAS does is simplify the notation.

This is nice, but “It works by definition” is what we’ve basically been saying. You said we’re ignorant about why, so why did this become the definition and not something else?