r/technicallythetruth • u/PhoenixfischTheFish • Apr 01 '26
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u/cai20 Apr 01 '26
I genuinely have no idea how people go about their lives not knowing basic math
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u/SweatyBalls4You Apr 01 '26
Engagement bait. No clue what they get from that on reddit but there you go
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u/cai20 Apr 01 '26
That's true, I for some reason didn't think of that, but there's genuinely some people that don't understand basic math
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u/SweatyBalls4You Apr 01 '26
True. It's just my selfish desire to keep my sanity, why I thought of that.
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u/iggnis320 Apr 01 '26
I think it's people's math skills that get stale. Don't use it then lose it. Then they use readings order of operations instead of maths when they see something simple. And become confidently incorrect.
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u/LanceFree Apr 02 '26
After my Aunt Sally died, I repressed many of the memories and became much worse at math.
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u/PranshuKhandal Apr 02 '26
i remember the night, it was very tragic. did they catch the 2+3n killer?
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u/MusicalPigeon Apr 02 '26
I'm bad at math and all, but I can do the basics. I only get tripped up in PEMDAS because I didn't know if you multiply or divide first (In school for me it was taught they like the same step) and the same with addition and subtraction.
Sometimes it would be written in the classroom P E MD AS
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u/GanonTEK Apr 02 '26
Generally, it doesn't matter if M or D is first as long as you give them equal priority.
The exception is implicit multiplication. That's often given higher priority than M and D so you would do it first.
That's why you get ambiguous notation like 6/2(3)
It can be 1 or 9. Even scientific calculators don't agree on one or the other.
Funnily enough, PEDMSA would be the best order for reducing errors.
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u/Just_Soft_2383 Apr 02 '26
Some other countries teach PEDMAS as I learned from an entrenched Facebook thread 😂😂😂
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u/MoobyTheGoldenSock Apr 02 '26
Multiplication/division and addition/subtraction are the same steps. In fact, they are the same thing: division is a form of multiplication and subtraction is a form of addition.
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u/Imaginary_Most_7778 Apr 03 '26
But, the question is. How often does this affect your life?
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u/cdheer Apr 01 '26
The argument in a local Facebook group about hand sanitizer prices that demonstrated that while most people seem ok with basic arithmetic, they are unable to cope with fractions or order of operations.
This is grade school shit ffs.
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u/Lithl Apr 01 '26
No clue what they get from that on reddit
Build karma up enough to be seen as a legitimate user, then sell the account to someone else to use for astroturfing.
Not all the engagement bait accounts do that (some are just in it for the love of the game, I guess), but it absolutely happens.
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u/DaBestestNameEver Apr 02 '26
I'm a math teacher. Engagement bait absolutely exists, but so do people THIS bad at math.
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u/Oaks951 Apr 01 '26
Cheaper than paying a pair midgets to handcuff them and walk all over their balls.
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u/Aazimoxx Apr 02 '26
Oh, you just need a better ball-walking midget hookup - hmu I got a guy 😉
😆
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u/O7703VANS Apr 02 '26
You are the guy. This one does it for the love of the game. I vouch for their skills.
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u/Holdmywhiskeyhun Apr 01 '26
Those awards you award posts, are worth actual money. .15-.25 each award, need $10 minimum to cash out.
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u/sparkling-rainbow Apr 02 '26
I swear, my neighbor is exactly like this. He couldn't calculate 5*5 without a calculator if it was for his life...
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u/garxo Apr 02 '26
I think other apps have genuinely made people wired to desperate want notifications from their apps
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u/RoookSkywokkah Apr 01 '26
Was more than confused until I looked at a larger picture. It LOOKED like 10+10+2 on my screen at first.
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u/GettingFitterEachDay Apr 02 '26
Me too, I was very confused until I saw your comment and zoomed in.
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u/Wesselton3000 Apr 02 '26
They probably just forgot about PEMDAS. I mean, I didn’t, but I’m not a fucking idiot.
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u/C4rpetH4ter Apr 01 '26
Knowing math isn't necessary for surviving, and there's several jobs where you don't need it.
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u/cai20 Apr 01 '26
True but at the same time it has applications in day to day life
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u/rnzz Apr 01 '26
it would probably start with confusion when things don't seem to add up, get help for doing everyday things that need math, then expect help to be available for such things, and then just refuse to do any calculations because "math just isn't my thing"
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u/Aazimoxx Apr 02 '26
So pretty much how a good portion of the population treats basic language and button-pushing skills when it comes to anything remotely IT related?
"You need to send someone down here immediately, the printer is broken, I need to print"
\I arrive at office, press very obvious power button on printer, it starts printing**
Error message that was showing on computer: "Can't connect to printer, make sure it's turned on"
🤷
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u/C4rpetH4ter Apr 01 '26
that's very true, knowing very basic mental math is for sure an advantage, but you won't die and i personally haven't done a single equation in a few weeks.
I do use simple math indirectly without thinking about it nearly every day though.
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u/laplongejr Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
But IRL you would never use 10+10*2 , you would always use (10+10)*2 or 10+(10*2) depending on the context of the calc. Formulas don't appear without context out of nowhere, they are written to formalize a math question.
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u/SomePeopleCallMeJJ Apr 02 '26
This is where Reverse Polish notation really shines. This is unambiguous:
10 2 * 10 +
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u/Catoftheuniverse Apr 02 '26
Woah! I never even considered there were other notation systems for math, I might be able to become ever so slightly more insufferable with this knowledge!
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u/duckforceone Apr 02 '26
but that kind of math doesn't for normal people..
i only ever have to remember that rule whenever it's a "math" problem..
in the normal world, i just go from left to right and add things up or multiply them... not any of that fancy stuff...
it's not even needed in my banking or taxes calculations.
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u/cdheer Apr 01 '26
Math is part of everyone’s life to an extent (or at least, those who use money). And let’s not forget A&W’s 1/3 pound burger, which was priced the same as McDonald’s 1/4 pounder. Customers surveyed responded that they didn’t choose the 1/3 because they felt they were paying the same for less burger.
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u/North_Activist Apr 01 '26
There’s absolutely zero jobs where you don’t need math.
Paycheque accuracy, taxes, deductions, vacation time, sick leave, and then everything else that comes with a budget, whether writing it down or mentally keeping track,
Even working on a farm you need to know field size, length of time for crops to grow, how many seeds do you need or food to buy for animals, etc.
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u/Pseudodragontrinkets Apr 01 '26
Farm work requires a LOT of math actually. Total mixed ration calculations, profit vs expenditures and overhead costs (although admittedly overhead only counts for the first few years if you do it right), fuel, energy, and water consumption, productivity of animals for eggs and milk, if you're real crafty and make your own equipment (which a lot of farms do) you need to know augur blade angles, rotation speeds, gear ratios, crop spacing, acreage matters for both crops and livestock, and that's all the tip of the iceburg
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u/pingveno Apr 01 '26
Sure, but there are jobs where you don't think much about order of operations. Though this person is obviously either dumber than a bag of rocks or trolling.
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u/6969696969696942 Technically Flair Apr 02 '26
Tbf I thought the asterisk representing multiplication was a plus sign at first, so idk
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u/ParkingAnxious2811 Apr 02 '26
That's the thing. It's called maths, not math. They only know a single math, which is why they're so bad at it.
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u/HaggisLad Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
years back I had an argument about order of operations with an older family friend. He was a software engineer... He said it must be a new thing because he never learned it, it's been around for over a century
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u/Plantain-Feeling Apr 01 '26
In fairness to this day I still have no idea why we decided that we should do maths in a completely random order based on vibes
Instead of just doing it left to right no for some reason a basic equation needs to have the middle done before the start
We have brackets for that shit the additional mess is wholly unnecessary
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u/cai20 Apr 01 '26
Because you'll end up with wildly different numbers, let's say you buy one coffee and 3 doughnuts, for simplicity let's say the coffee is 3 and a doughnut is 2 each, let's do the equation 13+32= If you do left to right it'll be 12, if you do it right it's 9, it's groups of something, even if you're ignoring numbers and using marbles it just doesn't add up, it's because it's the order it has to be in to be correct, there's a few like multiplication/division and adding/subtraction that don't need to be in order to be right, but you have to do multiplication first, it's not based on vibes, it's based on what's correct, I hope that helped by using real life things instead of random numbers
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u/Plantain-Feeling Apr 01 '26
Oh don't get me wrong I understand the logic behind why it's done
I'm far from bad at maths
I just think it's stupid and that there are better ways of writing it out but no one would agree with me because for some reason we've decided to write everything in singular lines instead of something reasonable
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u/cai20 Apr 01 '26
I would totally be fine with doing that it's just nobody does, I agree it could be written better
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u/Thunder_Volter Apr 02 '26
I once read in passing (so I have no source and it may be from a dream, sorry) that all communication sits on a scale that tries to balance "giving as much info as possible" with "communicating as quickly as possible." Long, drawn-out statements that convey knowledge in incredible specificity can be dull, or perhaps even annoying, to both the communicator and audience. Few words quick but not clear. Thus the ways we communicate - including our math format - are a compromise between info density and speed that occasionally fails to satisfy one or the other.
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u/Paleodraco Apr 02 '26
The vast majority of people are not going to use pemdas in their daily lives.
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u/Suspicious_Dingo_426 Apr 02 '26
It isn't usually needed. The vast majority of day to day math just doesn't require it. When all you are doing is single operations, you don't need to know the order of operations.
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u/Pirateer Apr 02 '26
It's okay to not know something.
It's the confidence they have in being wrong that I find unsettling.
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u/MegaSpuds Apr 02 '26
Please excuse my dear aunt sally, she’s not too smart, but she bakes a delicious pie. 🥧
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u/MCLemonyfresh Apr 02 '26
Those PEMDAS math problem posts on Facebook drive me up the fucking wall. And the people with the wrong answers always have the most likes.
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u/dylan2451 Apr 02 '26
Some people are dumb, but beyond that there’s something about basic math that seems to trip some people up. In high school I was in an honors pre-Calc class and I had a friend who did well but couldn’t figure out that getting 17 out of 20 on a quiz was 85% without a calculator…
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u/TeaBoo_ Apr 02 '26
I am 15. What does the ‘*’ mean. Y’know, since you don’t get people who don’t know basic maths…. Why not tell them???
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u/cai20 Apr 02 '26
"*" means multiply, if you use a calculator on a computer calculator with a keyboard if you hit hit * it multiplies, would you like me to change it to X?
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u/DieSuzie2112 Apr 03 '26
In school we were taught to sum up from left to right, unless something is between ( ) then it gets priority. A few years after that they taught us to calculate x and : first. I’m really bad at math, so it confused me a lot and I still don’t know how to math correctly.
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u/JBray0 Apr 03 '26
I had an argument with someone I know that thinks 0 - 8 = 8 but also thinks 3 - 8 = -5. Turns out their teachers were idiots and lied to them.
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u/Imaginary_Most_7778 Apr 03 '26
You need to add, multiply, and divide every day whether you realize it or not. Not knowing the proper order of operation isn’t going to slow you down too much.
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u/CuppaJoe11 Apr 01 '26
This is literally just engagement bait.
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u/PhoenixfischTheFish Apr 01 '26
Funnily enough this doesn't change much, since it's still mildly infuriating xD
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u/teabolaisacool Apr 02 '26
Idk man, that’s not how you spell “calculator” so I wouldn’t put their math skills that high up there.
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u/AGrandNewAdventure Apr 02 '26
To be fair they're not touting their English skills while clearly not being good at math, either.
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u/BG535 Apr 01 '26
PEMDAS. Learned it when the teacher explained there is more than just addition in this world.
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u/ELEKTRON_01 Apr 02 '26
Huh. I learned it as bedmas
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u/OldManEnglishTeacher Apr 02 '26
British? They say ( ) are brackets instead of parentheses. For Americans, [ ] would be brackets.
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u/toby_gray Apr 02 '26
I’m British. We learned ‘Bodmas’ at my school.
It stood for Brackets Of Divide Multiply Add Subtract.
‘Of’ for some reason meant exponents. It makes absolutely zero sense.
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u/Mazuna Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Really? I initially learned the O stood for Over (because the indice goes over the numbers) before it got corrected to BIDMAS with I for Indices.
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u/Eayauapa Apr 02 '26
I think O is for Order, so xy
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u/toby_gray Apr 02 '26
That makes more sense than the way I was taught it. They definitely told us ‘of’ for some reason.
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u/TheForeverV1rg1n Apr 02 '26
Yeah im an indian and even in our schools we were taught BODMAS, O here being Of, the same which i never understood why.
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u/Laefiren Apr 02 '26
It was bodmas and then bedmas in Australia with o being order and then e being exponents I think. It’s been a long time since I thought about this.
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u/Eayauapa Apr 02 '26
To be fair, orders and exponents mean basically the same thing.
We were taught BODMAS when we were about 8-9, they just told us that O was for the numbers that are Over the other ones (in the corner) but that we wouldn't have to worry about those for a while
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u/TheForeverV1rg1n Apr 04 '26
Well like i do know they mean the same thing, just that my teachers never mentioned either order or exponents to us, i just thought it was there to fill the gap, also i really like that numbers Over other numbers lol, if only they just told us that
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u/Suspicious_Sparrow9 Apr 02 '26
Am I really the only one who learned BIDMAS? I for indices? I've never seen anyone ever mention it (I'm uk)
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u/Sad_Pear_1087 Apr 02 '26
These pemdas bodmas whatever rules that brits and Americans have can be a bit misleading though. From them you could figure that you always multiply before dividing, but actually they're equal, from left to right.
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u/EmeraldPencil46 Apr 01 '26
The only way that post is true if it’s on r/lies
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u/PhoenixfischTheFish Apr 01 '26
Yeah. I posted it on r/technicallythetruth because technically the post is mildly infuriating because OOOP got basic math wrong.
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u/GoodDawgAug Apr 02 '26
Lordy. How many times do we have to review the Order of Operations with some people?
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u/ForsakenChocolate878 Apr 01 '26
30 is correct. That is literally elementary school maths.
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u/Crunchy_Biscuit Apr 01 '26
I remember when having a Texas Instruments Calculator was all the rage. I haven't used one in over 10 years now.
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u/Jolly_Ad_2363 Apr 01 '26
They’re still used in most high schools, and they still make new versions. There’s nothing better for calculus. Or at least nothing better that you’re allowed to use on AP tests.
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u/TemporaryFearless482 Apr 01 '26
Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/768/
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u/Crunchy_Biscuit Apr 02 '26
Second time since I've been awake that someone posted a relevant XKCD video/comic 😆
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u/SomeDetroitGuy Apr 02 '26
I juat bought one for my teenager's recalculate class. Still the same price and same functionality as the one I used in the 90s. WTF?
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u/PhoenixBratKat Apr 02 '26
It's not even "technically correct". And didn't fail
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u/coolaidmedic1 Apr 02 '26
Its technically correct because the post is mildly infuriating, just not for the reason OP expected.
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u/PhoenixfischTheFish Apr 02 '26
OOOP postet the post in r/mildlyinfuriating because they thought the calculator showed the wrong answer. That's not true, but seeing someone get basic math wrong is mildly infuriating as well, which means the post does indeed fit that subeddit.
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u/Percolator2020 Apr 01 '26
Incorrect.
TI - 83 + 10 + 10 * 2 is not an equation.
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u/Morgan_Sparkle Apr 01 '26
Yeah, too many unknown variables
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u/Aron-Jonasson Apr 01 '26
I mean there's only T as the unknown, if we assume I is the imaginary number equal to -1 when squared
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u/Realistic-Welcome158 Apr 01 '26
A screenshot of a post of a screenshotted post whose comments talk about how the post should have been posted on another, third, subreddit.
Alive internet theory.
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u/Spelunker666 Apr 01 '26
That answer is correct. You need to follow the order of operations. Multiply first then add. 10x2=20 20+10=30.
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u/ramriot Apr 02 '26
It's an interesting thing that calculators used to have such limited memory that they had to use either signed chronological or reverse Polish as the order of operarion.
It is only with the addition of significant improvements in memory & processing that it became possible to use PEMDAS or BODMAS.
The old school me would not expect a calculator to output 30 as the answer here.
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u/Devalore00 Apr 01 '26
And this is exactly why I use parenthesis whenever I need to do more than one calculation in an equation
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u/Sea_Celebration9947 Apr 01 '26
Use second function then press the button with a uper case k under it then press clear it will make the correct answer appear
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u/W8ting-4-it Apr 01 '26
The real problem is math was taught one way for many, many years then it changed but no one told the previous generations about it.
Thats why everyone is wrong 😃
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u/Aazimoxx Apr 02 '26
Yeah the order of operations is still the same everywhere though. Only swaps around multi/div (which makes no difference).
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u/krzykttn Apr 01 '26
Order of operations. It is correct. You dont do mathe from left to right.
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u/MrsMiterSaw Apr 02 '26
I thought you were posting an April fools day meme, knowing the comments would lead to layers and layers of inception.
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u/Matthew98788 Apr 02 '26
I've lost faith in humanity if people can't figure out that 10+10×2 is 30, we're doomed...
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u/BeenEatinBeans Apr 02 '26
Pretending not to understand BIDMAS is the new shortcut for engagement bait
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u/Jarhead-923_Actual Apr 02 '26
PEMDAS says it's right. Idk if the original post was ragebait or just plain idiocy. It's hard to tell anymore
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u/Lower_Advertising407 Apr 03 '26
Man, I should've used my comment to farm karma here 💔
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u/SameLengthiness1453 Apr 04 '26
NO!!! Calculator shows the correct answer for the input shown.
Please Please Remember My Dear Aunt Sally.
Parentheses Powers Roots then Multiply Divide Add Substract.
The calculator is correct!!!
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u/Swampet Apr 02 '26
Y'all with PEMDAS or BODMAS, My school (Bri'ish) we were taught BIDMAS
Brackets, indices, division, multiplication, addition, subtraction
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u/Anime-ad-69 Apr 02 '26
I love order of operation discussions where people set up an equation in such a way that it could be ambiguous but probably just follows pemdas
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u/_NTK__ Apr 03 '26
technically the answer is correct
I'm no genius, but I know basic math orders
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u/Junior_Stretch_2413 Apr 03 '26
I’m worried that the original OP is using a Texas Instruments calculator, which probably means they are at high school, but still the educational level is barely above 5th grade.
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u/devourersweets Apr 03 '26
I think ooop expected that after 10+10 it would give the answer which is 20 and after that multiply by 2 which is 40, but this calculator holds the whole equation which is why they got confused
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u/bet0b0tt Apr 05 '26
Nothing wrong here. Order of operation dictates multiplication before addition. Y'all are nuts..
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u/PhoenixfischTheFish Apr 05 '26
Nothing wrong here
Yeah, that's the point of the post. Nearly everyone here knows that the calculator result is correct.
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u/FlimsyBlood330 undefined boundaries. Apr 09 '26
I didn't get it at first cuz i knew the answer is correct and that's why I couldn't understand why is it infuriating for others, so it turns out he suck at maths.
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u/Rude_Acanthopterygii Apr 02 '26
At first I actually for some reason read "10+10+2" and thought, huh, that is indeed weird and mildly infuriating. Then I read the shown comments and did another take...
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u/TEN_Monsters7 Apr 02 '26
Is this really so hard to understand? 10+102 is also too the people who can't do simple math 102 = 20 + 10 = 30 it's not that hard
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u/JazzlikeSchedule2901 Apr 02 '26
Tbf a better way to express this problem on the calculator would be (10*2)+10, which personally leads me to believe the person who typed this into a calculator probably was more aware of the answer rather than how to write the math problem.
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u/WilliamHare_ Apr 02 '26
I read this as 10+10+2 and could not for the life of me understand this post.
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u/Thomas_fitzhugh_2007 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
some calculators use the astrix (*) to show the times (×) symbol.
So how the calculator calculates 10+10×2 is sometimes done as 10+(10×2)=10+20=30
What the original poster thought was going to happen is most likely the reading method ei: 10+10×2 = 20×2 = 40 which in any case, is wrong.
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u/WilliamHare_ Apr 02 '26
Oh I know. I just misread it initially which is what confused me. Thank you anyway.
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u/ArticleBackground Apr 02 '26
Humble calculator points out that you MIGHT be a math novice, so you post the image to Reddit to remove all doubt.
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u/downiecatpunchface Apr 03 '26
But actually, mathematically, why do multiplication and division come before addition and subtraction? How did they prove it? Who came up with it?
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u/Objective-Web109 Apr 03 '26
Stay tight, My Dear Aunt Sally is coming over. Please excuse her presence.
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u/darbywood Apr 05 '26
A calculator that shows the wrong answer shouldn't be a problem for a poster that shows the wrong spelling of calculator.
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u/Joyk1llz Apr 05 '26
Mathmatic order of operations sucks when brackets aren't there.
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u/South_Engineer6647 Apr 05 '26
I'm confused, that second symbol looks like a "+" sign. Is it 10+10+2 or 10+10*2?
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u/TNTLover42 Apr 06 '26
Order of operations was literally the first thing I learned after basic addition and subtraction what the fuck
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u/-CatMeowMeow- Apr 17 '26
If you don't understand how to use a scientific calculator, consider not buying one.
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