• AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    “Wrong answers” only according to our current order of operations, math still works if you, for example, make additions come first (as long as you’re consistent about it).

    OFC it is a convention and to change it you would have to change all expressions ever written all at the same time, to avoid confusion between competing standards. I’m not arguing that it should be changed, only that there is no ‘high truth’ behind it.

    • “Wrong answers” only according to our current order of operations

      No, according to arithmetic.

      math still works if you, for example, make additions come first

      No, it doesn’t - order of operations proof. The only way it could work with addition first is if we swapped the definitions of addition and multiplication around… but then we still have the same order of operations, all we’ve done is swapped around what we call addition and multiplication!

      there is no ‘high truth’ behind it.

      There is when it comes to order of operations.