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PEMDAS is technically correct, but morally wrong (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by Chainweasel@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

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If we're supposed to be able to understand math as easily as a language, we should be able to read it from left to right like a language.
Yes, I know there's lots other languages that go right to left or top to bottom, but the point is you don't have to go jumping around the page or sentence figuring out which word should be read first based on which characters it contains.
We put the first word first, then the second word second, etc.
Why can't we just write equations in the order they were meant to be solved?

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[-] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 29 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

we can if we want, its called Polish notation
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_notation

instead of x + y we write + x y
then 2 + 3 * (3 + 7) + 6 becomes + 2 + * 3 + 3 7 6

no order of operations to remember, but good luck parsing it.

this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024

-37 points (21.5% liked)

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