I have seen several people saying the order operation is
- Brackets/Parenthesis
- Orders (roots and powers)
- Divisions
- Multiplications
- Subtractions
- Additions
But I was taught it as
- Brackets/Parenthesis
- Roots and powers, left to right (independently of the exact operation)
- Divisions and multiplications, left to right (independently of the exact operation)
- Subtractions and additions, left to right (independently of the exact operation)
So, what order were you taught and/or use today?
Yeah, differentiating between multiplications vs. divisions and additions vs. subtractions doesn’t make sense, because they’re the same thing respectively, just written differently.
When you divide by 3, you can also multiply by ⅓.
When you subtract 7, you can also add -7.
There is one quirk to be aware of, though. When people notate a division with a long horizontal line, that implies parentheses around both of the expressions, top and bottom.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is how we remember it as either BEDMAS or PEMDAS, but not PEDMAS or BEMDAS. The order of M and D are tied to whether we use the term brackets or parentheses. BEMDAS sounds very wrong to me
Why? Why would this be important?
It’s not important, just an observation of spoken language. Similar to the order of adjectives or how there’s usually a “correct” sounding way to list two names.
If anything, it might explain why people are tied to a particular order of multiplication and division
https://englishan.com/order-of-adjectives/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonaesthetics
FWIW they all sound equally ok to me. I never learned any of these acronyms, tho I’ve come across them on occasion, and if someone had presented any of the 4 as THE acronym for this I’d have believed them.
I think because I read about this riddle in the past, I might have built up some associations myself. So maybe there’s actually nothing there 😄