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To: IYAS9YAS

The calculators in question used /. See the pictures of the 2 calculators at the top of the thread. I can’t say for sure, but the link you’re looking at is almost certainly pre-parsing the problem text before evaluating it, and it’s “rewriting” the problem differently for the / and ÷ cases.

Google gives 288 for both / and ÷. Bing gives 288 for / but does not calculate with ÷. Matlab, C, C#, PHP, JavaScript, bc, Python, and the HP50g all say 288.

What does this mean? Math, like other languages, has evolved over the years. The implied multiplication question is still being asked, which is evidence of the continuing evolution. In the last 4-5 decades or so (and probably as a result of the development of computing,) implied multiplication has come to have the same precedence as explicit multiplication. This is evident in the fact that so many languages and computing platforms give 288 as the answer to the problem in question. Very few give an answer of 2. Even though some TI products produce 2, TI has changed their approach so that newer products say 288.


457 posted on 04/12/2011 9:19:55 PM PDT by RBranha (Captialism is the natural outgrowth of human freedom.)
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To: RBranha
I tried several online algebra calculators.

With / I got 288, but when I used ÷, I got 2.

459 posted on 04/12/2011 9:25:56 PM PDT by CharacterCounts (November 4, 2008 - the day America drank the Kool-Aid)
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