Ultimately it’s ambiguous and bad. But most mathematicians (at a level higher than primary school education) use multiplication by juxtaposition—aka implicit multiplication—at a higher priority than division. BIDMAS, as you might have been taught in primary school, is an oversimplification that doesn’t even account for the possibility of juxtaposition, because you didn’t learn about that until secondary school.
Most mathematicians would use logic that lets you arrive at the answer of “1”, while also saying it should have been written better. Brackets are cheap. Use them!
There’s some academic debate on it, you’ll hear different things. A hard interpretation of PEMDAS would say 16 is correct, however PEMDAS is fairly new and predated by algebra and implicit multiplication.
If you replace (2+2) with x:
8 / 2x = 4 / x = 4 / (2+2) = 1
Thus implicit multiplication takes priority over division. IMO, anyway.
Meanwhile:
8 / 2 * x = 4 * x = 4 * (2+2) = 16
Explicit multiplication follows PEMDAS, left to right for multiplication/division.
So umm what’s the correct one?
Ultimately it’s ambiguous and bad. But most mathematicians (at a level higher than primary school education) use multiplication by juxtaposition—aka implicit multiplication—at a higher priority than division. BIDMAS, as you might have been taught in primary school, is an oversimplification that doesn’t even account for the possibility of juxtaposition, because you didn’t learn about that until secondary school.
Most mathematicians would use logic that lets you arrive at the answer of “1”, while also saying it should have been written better. Brackets are cheap. Use them!
If you believe multiplication goes before division then
1.8 / (2 * 4)If you believe multiplication and division are of equal importance
16.8 / 2 * 4SQL, Google, and I believe C++ and HLSL would say the latter: (
16)That’s not “multiplication” though - that’s The Distributive Law. Multiplication refers literally to multiplication signs.
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
There’s some academic debate on it, you’ll hear different things. A hard interpretation of PEMDAS would say 16 is correct, however PEMDAS is fairly new and predated by algebra and implicit multiplication.
If you replace (2+2) with x:
8 / 2x = 4 / x = 4 / (2+2) = 1
Thus implicit multiplication takes priority over division. IMO, anyway.
Meanwhile:
8 / 2 * x = 4 * x = 4 * (2+2) = 16
Explicit multiplication follows PEMDAS, left to right for multiplication/division.
Yes, one is correct :-)