48÷2(9+3) = ?

Your question fails the basic test. Does it compile?

sketch_apr21b:2: error: stray '\' in program
sketch_apr21b.cpp: In function 'void setup()':
sketch_apr21b:2: error: expected `;' before 'u00f72'

Therefore there can be no answer. Excepting 42 of course. :wink:

I've just googled this and a site pointed out that implied multiplication has a higher precedence than division. For example, 2/5x would normally be interpreted as 2/(5x)

Implied multiplication may have an implied higher precedence than division, not a mathematical precedence...

...plus, you shouldn't always believe what you google.

AWOL:
...plus, you shouldn't always believe what you google.

...but...but...google is always right!

Not just google.... the InterWebs! If it's on the InterWebs it MUST be true!

What's the interwebs?

Google is the internets

CowJam:
I've just googled this and a site pointed out that implied multiplication has a higher precedence than division. For example, 2/5x would normally be interpreted as 2/(5x)

Reference?

I have seen it claimed that 3-1+5 equals -3 on the basis that you evaluate it as 3 - (1 + 5). The reason given is that BODMAS (or BIDMAS/BEDMAS) stands for Brackets, Exponents, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction. Therefore since addition is before subtraction you add 1 to 5, and then you subtract that from 3, giving -3.

However this is wrong. Multiplication/division, and addition/subtraction have equal priority and are evaluated left to right.

Wikipedia:

Many programming languages use precedence levels that conform to the order commonly used in mathematics, though some, such as APL or Smalltalk, have no operator precedence rules (in APL evaluation is strictly right to left, in Smalltalk it's strictly left to right).

KE7GKP:
Not everybody agrees with that.

Yes, I see that.

Well the question is undefined then. Without specifying the base of the numbers, the domain in which we are working (eg. maths, APL, Smalltalk, C, Swahili, Martian) it cannot be answered.

And that is the fundamental issue. Not everybody agrees with that.

Heck, we can't all even agree on which side of a road to drive on. :wink:

retrolefty:

And that is the fundamental issue. Not everybody agrees with that.

Heck, we can't all even agree on which side of a road to drive on. :wink:

Now you're trying to confuse things with geometry.

Vehicle A belongs to me
Road B is whatever road vehicle A is on currently
Road B is bisected by line C
All roads belong to me
Therefore vehicle A may drive on either side of line C

Heck, we can't all even agree on which side of a road to drive on.

Depends which way you're travelling :smiley:

mowcius:

Heck, we can't all even agree on which side of a road to drive on.

Depends which way you're travelling :smiley:

Well that would be my way or the highway. :wink:

shouldn't it be following order of operations so that inside the parenthesis is first this would make it two, but as for the other approaches, I did not really get them.

I did not really get them.

It all boils down to whether you do the un-parthenthesized multiplication or division first:
48÷(2(9+3)) or (48÷2)(9+3)
and THAT depends on whether you believe that implied multiplication (2x) has a different precedence than explicit multiplication (2*x), whether there's an explicit precedence of multiplication vs division, and/or whether you believe in left-to-right evaluation or something else. All of which are NOT consistently defined.

CowJam:
I've just googled this and a site pointed out that implied multiplication has a higher precedence than division. For example, 2/5x would normally be interpreted as 2/(5x)

48÷2(9+3) = y
If we say that (9+3) is x, then x = 12.
That makes it 48÷2x, or 48*(212)
2
12 is 24.
48÷24=2, so 2 is my answer.

Arduino disagrees though:

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.print(48/2*(9+3));
}
void loop(){}

Serial output: 288.

Onions.

I just keyed the equation, exactly as it is written and got 2!

That was after I got 2 solving it in my head and then reading the rest of the posts!

AS an aside for all the weird little varmints going on about which base...

In maths if it's a different base other than 10, then there is a little subscript notation of base, ie

1010
0A16
128
10102

Excel says an operator is missing, I am going with that: unclear formula presented.

Otherwise, it wants to correct it to
=48/2*(9+3), for result of 288.
And microsoft is never wrong ...

cyberteque:
I just keyed the equation, exactly as it is written and got 2!

Into what?

A Casio fx-100AU calculator.

48÷2(9+3) = 2

obviously it's evaluating the bracket argument first.
QBasic on a PC gave the same answer, so did Apple basic on an Apple II.
FPC (free pascal compiler) under Linux also gave 2.
USCD Pascal on an Apple 2 gave 2.

I didn't try any other flavours yet.

But 2 was the answer I got when I evaluated it in my head initially.