this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

https://zeta.one/viral-math/

I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.

It's about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it's worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I'm probably biased because I wrote it :)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think anything after (whichever grade your country introduces fractions in) should exclusively use fractions or multiplication with fractions to express division in order to disambiguate. A division symbol should never be used after fractions are introduced.

This way, it doesn't really matter which juxtaposition you prefer, because it will never be ambiguous.

Anything before (whichever grade introduces fractions) should simply overuse brackets.

This comment was written in a couple of seconds, so if I missed something obvious, feel free to obliterate me.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

A division symbol should never be used after fractions are introduced.

But a fraction is a single term, 2 numbers separated by a division is 2 terms. Terms are separated by operators and joined by grouping symbols.