Mathematical dispute

[yanamaster]

Vertigo-X said:

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
I think they should have written: 48/(2(3+9)) if they wanted to make sure that the answer is 2.

Still, I'm not too certain if the number 2 is part of the brackets or not. And different mathematicians come up with different answers so I really don't see the discussion value.

In school I was taught that there may be two different ways of solving this, by the way.

On your first part, that is right. If you solve the parenthesis portion first, the resulting number becomes ordinary; there is no special rule that applies to it. Simply having the two next to it doesn't mean it's automatically distributed; the distributive property is a way of simplifying  and not an actual order of operation.

 

Like you said, if people want to get two for an answer, they'd need to place brackets around the two and the parenthesis. Think of it this way: how would you put this into a calculator? You'd put additional brackets around the 2(3+9) if you wanted the answer to be two. :)

Truthfuly i don't use calculators unless i really need it for  calculations like getting the root values of non solvable roots or powering fractions. the reason being that different calculatos are programmed differently (as in this case, checked my Polish calculator, it gave me a 2, checked my firends calculator form england and gave me 288).

Maybe the difference comes from how notations are treated in different parts of the world?