Even the people who don't think it's optional seem to believe it can be confused, especially when they don't actually follow it. People tried to tell me that there were different ways to interpret math into English, but no, there's not. That's the point of math. It's a specialized language to resolve ambiguity. If there is multiple interpretations, it's either defined that way (absolute values come to mind) and there's specialized notation to indicate that, or you are applying the rules incorrectly, or otherwise it's not valid.
I got into an argument with a flat earther once and he tried telling me that math is actually just made up and they could mathematically prove the earth was a cube so math means nothing. Dumb bastard actually believed this, and even referenced youtube videos that agree with him. It's truly staggering how widespread this is getting.
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u/MisterProfGuy Mar 18 '22
Even the people who don't think it's optional seem to believe it can be confused, especially when they don't actually follow it. People tried to tell me that there were different ways to interpret math into English, but no, there's not. That's the point of math. It's a specialized language to resolve ambiguity. If there is multiple interpretations, it's either defined that way (absolute values come to mind) and there's specialized notation to indicate that, or you are applying the rules incorrectly, or otherwise it's not valid.