[Swordmaker]

I majored in math modeling and haven't found the error in Cboldts exercise.

Te error is in the order in which the math was done. The mnemonic of "Please Excuse my dear Aunt Sally." or PEMDAS . . . Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.

Had you done that, you would have found that the (a+b-c), reduces to equal zero. Because c was originally defined as being the sum of a+b=c. Therefore, subtracting c from a + b, negates the total of both.

Then, when you do the third step, there being no exponents to do, of multiplication, anything multiplied by ZERO, equals Zero, the correct result is 2(0) = 3(0) which then reduces to 0=0, not the claimed 2=3.

The example math, as shown, is erroneous due to failure to do the math by PEMDAS.

[RoosterRedux]

As an econometrics and programming guy re: math, I was gobsmacked by the fact that I couldn't find the error in a simple math problem.

I thought I was getting so old I was losing my math ability.

I program everyday to stay sharp...mostly VBA for Excel which I use to write stock market routines for investing.

But here I was stumped by a simple thing.

I thought of dialing 911 for alzheimers patients (math department).

But thx to Cboldt, I saw the error of my way and got back on track.