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Math Problem taking the Internet by storm - Page 3

post #31 of 116
4/11/11 at 4:25am
÷µ÷
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post #32 of 116
4/11/11 at 7:57am
Who the fuck uses that division sign anymore? Maybe it's used as a divisional operator in some programming language or another with which I'm not familiar, but I've almost always used and seen "/" when typed. If the "/" operator were used, it would very much suggest that the 12 were the denominator, giving 2 as the answer. As written, however, I'd go with 288. FWIW, Excel would probably give 288 if you used "/" and didn't get OCD with the brackets.
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post #33 of 116
4/11/11 at 8:17am
Lmao didn't realize this stretched across the internetz. It reached a ton of pages on the BB forums which is where I saw it. LoLed at the physics forum with an almost dead even split between 2 and 288. If they can't get a general consensus, hope is lost.
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post #34 of 116
4/11/11 at 8:25am
Word problem taking the internet by storm!!! I'm a serial killer murderer Do I murder Serial killers, or do I muder people like a serial killer?
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post #35 of 116
4/11/11 at 2:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackhood View Post
Word problem taking the internet by storm!!!

I'm a serial killer murderer

Do I murder Serial killers, or do I muder people like a serial killer?

I'll wait on someone like Rach to weigh in on this one, as his jedi wordmastery probably exceeds my own.

That said, I'd interpret this sentence as meaning that you are a murderer of serial killers, e.g., Dexter. "Serial killer," in this case, is a modifier of "murderer."

Furthermore, the sentence "...do I murder people like a serial killer?" is technically incorrect. You should ask instead, "Do I murder people as a serial killer would?" It's a small and esoteric nitpick, but generally speaking, use "as" instead of "like" to describe an action. The word "like" in this sentence almost implies the question "Do I murder...a serial killer?"

/nerdery
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post #36 of 116
4/11/11 at 2:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Faded501s View Post
Don't even need a calculator for this.
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post #37 of 116
4/11/11 at 2:47pm
^
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post #38 of 116
4/11/11 at 2:54pm
Is there some higher math trick I'm missing here? Based on old fashioned order of operations, the answer is 2.
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post #39 of 116
4/11/11 at 3:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by thatoneguy View Post



I don't know...FWIW, we always used this.
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post #40 of 116
4/11/11 at 7:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gladhands View Post
Is there some higher math trick I'm missing here? Based on old fashioned order of operations, the answer is 2.

There's no higher math trick involved. It's a poorly written expression, whose interpretation by PEMDAS can yield two different results.
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post #41 of 116
4/11/11 at 7:37pm
purposely poorly written. The point of math is to be concise language...
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post #42 of 116
4/11/11 at 8:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by thatoneguy View Post

wtf?
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post #43 of 116
4/11/11 at 9:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Carlos View Post
...

FWIW, Excel would probably give 288 if you used "/" and didn't get OCD with the brackets.

This made me curious, so I tried it. Excel does give 288. Interestingly, it's also smart enough to prevent exactly the issue being discussed here. The first picture is my attempt to enter the problem as it is in the OP (albeit using "/" for division). Excel gives an error message and forces the correction in the second picture.

First attempt, with error message:



Correction (note the formula bar):

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post #44 of 116
4/12/11 at 2:05am
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i...B72%289%2B3%29

how little math do some of you do?
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post #45 of 116
4/12/11 at 2:51am
really? irregardless of the above the sequence to solving this is really depends if we are arranging the formula as 48/2 * (9+3)/1 or as 48/2(9+3) is 9+3 part of the 48/2 fraction and in the denominator? or is it a separate fraction being multiplied to the 48/2 (or 24) First way of doing this: 48/2 * (9+3)/1 24 * 12 288 Second way of doing this: 48/2(9+3) 48/2(12) 48/24 2 As you can see it really just depends on the composition of the numbers/signs, someone is clearly trying to mess with everyone's heads. CASE CLOSED
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