re: Bizarre Math Question and Answer breaks the internet - Sorry if already posted

quote:

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Nobody is arguing the answer. Strictly following the PEMDAS order of operations, the way it is taught in elementary arithmetic class, the 'answer' is 288.

Reading the statement the way an adult engineer would read it, the 'answer' is 2.

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And he'd still be wrong, so WTF does this mean?

This thread has certainly delivered the goods.

Smart guys with quality degrees are getting the wrong answer, thus the problem is ambiguous and doesn't apply in the real world?



If the author wanted the correct answer to be 2, the problem would have been written differently. End of story.

I'll put it another way - if you make no assumptions, the answer is 288. In make-believe land, with a few assumptions, the answer is 2. The former is correct, the latter is embarrassing.