This has been posted on Facebook and has got somewhere in the region of 70,000 comments with people's answers.

The majority are wrong.

I've put a selection of the answers given in this poll.

Select the answer you think is correct. (Answer before you view the results or read the thread.

These things crop up quite frequently on Facebook. It's quite scary how many people cannot do basic arithmetic (and I'm not talking about examples where the layout is ambiguous either).

I feel like a spaz now and I'm questioning myself. Should there be some brackets in the question, or shall I count myself with the inumerate masses ten years my junior?

Not really. The function of brackets in mathematical equations is to make them easier to read and calculate the result without having to sit down and think it through. If that equation was written somewhere and the author actually wanted people to solve it, he/she'd have put brackets in it. Not doing so is simply an attempt to make it ambiguous, which obvious generally you wouldn't do.

'Bloke not being able to intuitively solve equation written in a way as to be intentionally hard to solve' doesn't exactly seem like news to me.

It's like people who write obtuse code on the grounds it's 'more efficient' and then feel smug that being able to interpret it makes them smarter than every one else. No it doesn't, it makes you a moron for writing code that's much harder for someone else to maintain than it needs to be.

Jon

I disagree. Brackets are there to change the order in which calculations are normally processed.

With no brackets there is no ambiguity about which order things need to be done. Putting brackets in would make no difference to it.

Having said that, this is an intentionally ambiguous sum. So I can see why people are getting different answers.

They can do that, certainly, but they're also 'punctuation for equations'. Icouldwriteasentencelikethisandyouwouldprobablystillbeabletoreadit but that doesn't mean it's a useful thing to do. It isn't. In the same way, writing an arithmetic equation in a technically correct but non-intuitive way way is pointless, unless the object of the exercise is to test how well people know the rules of arithmetic. And, frankly, I dunno about you but I've never had to do that.


Indeed not - in so far as it doesn't change the answer (assuming you put the brackets in such a way as not to do so). But equations, like words, are also about communicating information - they are meant to be read. While the equation written is efficient arithmetically, it's very poor in communicating information. It is technically unambiguous (as equations always are) but as a method of communicating a pierce of arithmetic, it's suboptimal.

Jon

Very true

I suppose it's similar (in a way) to the exercises in English where you're given a sentence with no punctuation and asked to add in the punctuation yourself.

I was using bomdas and coming up with a different answer to most who were quoting bomdas, then remembered multiplication and division and addition and subtraction are done left to right.

The biggest issue seems to be that people were adamant that the order in which you do things should run from left to right, rather than following the rules of arithmentic (brackets, division/multiplication, addition/subtraction in that order).

The one that was particularly annoying was the one that went 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1x0 = ?

Most people wanted to put zero...

That's what I thought, but I've been questionning myself. Can someone explain to be who you would arrive at 7 please

And thanks Jon, as usual, that makes a lot of sense

To get to seven...

6 - 1 x 0 + 2 / 2

Using the BODMAS (or PEDMAS, or whichever acronym you use to remember order of operations)...

Brackets...
There are none.

Orders...
There are none.

Multiplication and Division from left to right
1 x 0 = 0 and 2 / 2 = 1 so this makes the sum...

6 - 0 (the result of the multiplication) + 1 (the result of the division).

6 - 0 + 1

Addition and Subtraction from left to right

6 - 0 = 6... 6 + 1 = 7.

So the answer is 7.

Thanks Oli.

I am a spaz then.

And if I got an A in higher GCSE maths 14 years ago, I worry for the state of the current generation. That said, maths was easy to pass as an exam and virtually useless thereafter. With brackets, I wouldn't have had a problem, which goes to Jon's point.

But then most people on here are smarter/nerdier than me, so whatever. The internet is full of smug assholes and sometimes I'm one of them. But I try really hard not to be most of the time.

I made it 6.

But then I am absolutely useless when it comes to sums.

I made it 7, by doing all the multplication & division first, then doing the additions and subtarctions.
To me it says 6 -0 +1 .
6 - (1 x 0) + (2 / 2) = ?????

I always add extra bracket when writing formulas myself just to clarify what order to do things in. I think I got the rules right (see above), but I'm never sure. The full (over) use of brackets ensures I get it right.