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BODMAS

21 October, 2014 at 06:10 PM

Few days back I witnessed a fight started in facebook on a simple post saying 6/2(2+1) is it 1 or 9. One group are saying 1 one are saying 9.

 

 

Some are referencing to BODMAS rule to satisfy there answer as 9 and some are actually thinking "/" as a fraction bar and interpreting the problem as 6/{2(2+1)}. To satisfy the answer as 1 That they want to distribute first. But in this case actually distribution is not necessary as every number are constant here. But they will still fight about it. No I have to distribute and "/" is a fraction bar here.

 

Actually both are correct to find that out we actually study the history of math. Before 18th century  mathematicians around the world were writing notation of their problems individually and differently. Latter all notation are accepted and used by us now. That's why actually "÷" "/" are same not a fraction bar.

 

And we started writing inline math equation very recently (as in programming language you have no other alternatives). As this problem is written as inline so all the confusions were building up here.

 

 

As I mentioned both are correct so no need to fight. But my preferable answer is "9" here. Cause I love BODMAS but distributing a constant.

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