TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

One of the Basic Math Rules You Learned In School Is Wrong

4 pointsby theoutlanderabout 12 years ago

3 comments

rbkilleaabout 12 years ago
I may be the only one who learned it this way, but here goes:<p>Square Brace (BPEMDAS with a silent B)<p>Parenthesis<p>Exponent<p>Multiply &#38; Divide<p>Addition &#38; Subtraction<p>When I learned PEMDAS (a long time ago) this was hammered into my head so well that I know the nuances to this day. In fact from what I recall there was 1 PEMDAS unit per year for a couple years in a row. Also, I hate sensationalism.
claudiusabout 12 years ago
The problem is to prioritise addition over subtraction and multiplication over division rather than assigning them equal priorities and evaluating the expression left-to-right. In German, there is no ‘PEMDAS’ but only ‘Punkt vor Strich’ (‘Dots before dashes’?), i.e. multiplication/division (·,:) before addition/subtraction (+,-). Parentheses obviously still take precedence.
cahitonurabout 12 years ago
I must be lucky then or my teacher was a real good one. I even didn't learn something like PEMDAS.