От: | AlexMld | ||
Дата: | 21.11.20 11:14 | ||
Оценка: |
A problem that hit the Internet in early 2011 is, "What is the value of 48/2(9+3) ?"
Depending on whether one interprets the expression as (48/2)(9+3) or as 48/(2(9+3)) one gets 288 or 2. There is no standard convention as to which of these two ways the expression should be interpreted, so, in fact, 48/2(9+3) is ambiguous. To render it unambiguous, one should write it either as (48/2)(9+3) or 48/(2(9+3)). This applies, in general, to any expression of the form a/bc : one needs to insert parentheses to show whether one means (a/b)c or a/(bc).
...the convention in algebra of denoting multiplication by juxtaposition (putting symbols side by side), without any multiplication symbol between them, has the effect that one sees something like ab as a single unit, so that it is natural to interpret ab+c or a+bc as a sum in which one of the summands is the product ab or bc. Without that typographic convention, the order-of-operations convention might never have evolved. When one has numbers rather than letters, one can't use juxtaposition, since it would give the appearance of a single decimal number, so one must insert a symbol such as ×, and there is less natural reason for interpreting 2 × 3 + 4 as (2 × 3) + 4 rather than 2 × (3 + 4), but I suppose that we do so by extension of the convention that arose in the algebraic context. Likewise, because addition and subtraction constitute one "family" of operations, and multiplication and division another, and perhaps also because the slant "/" doesn't seem to separate two expressions as much as a + or − does, we are ready to read a/b+c etc. as involving division before addition. But when it comes to a/bc, where the operations belong to the same family, the left-to-right order suggests doing the division first, while the "unseparated letters" notation suggests doing the multiplication first; so neither choice is obvious.
It is interesting that in the 48/2(9+3) problem, the last element was written 9+3 rather than 12. If the latter had been used, it would have been necessary to insert a multiplication sign, 48/2×12, and I would guess that a large majority of people would have then made the interpretation (48/2)×12. Perhaps we will never know where this puzzle originated; perhaps it was cunningly designed so that one interpretation would seem as likely as the other; or perhaps it came up as a real expression that someone happened to write down, not thinking of it as ambiguous, but that other people did have trouble with.
От: | Dym On | ||
Дата: | 21.11.20 11:42 | ||
Оценка: |
Это игра на том, что
1) даже в одной США учили по-разному; (не уверен, что обсуждено это в твите, но видел в каком-то из обсуждений)
2) все кроме англоязычных стран оценивают это из другой культуры, и привычные стереотипы не проходят.
There is no standard convention as to which of these two ways the expression should be interpreted, so, in fact, 48/2(9+3) is ambiguous.
От: | AlexMld | ||
Дата: | 21.11.20 13:05 | ||
Оценка: |
От: | rising_edge | ||
Дата: | 22.11.20 05:24 | ||
Оценка: | +1 |