This is how I know I am pretty bad at math... I spent a good 10 minutes trying to find out how it could equal to 9.
i looked at this and i get both ways but ask me to chose and i become a inversed tanget approaching a asymptote
I get 9, because it's a fraction next to a bracketed operation, which implies that the brackets join the numerator. It's stupid though, the only time I ever use a divide sign is when I have nested fractions and I'm figuring out how to separate them.
I'm Asian trust me. The answer is 9. Following the rules of BEDMAS (from grade nine), you do what ever is in the brackets first. Exponents do not exist in this equation. Division and multiplication are on the same level so you go from left to right. Addition and subtract are on the last level and go from left to right as well. 6 / 2 (1 + 2) = 9 6 / 2 (3) = 9 3 (3) = 9
follow the rules of mathematics, and the answer is 9. ---------- Post added 6th May 2011 at 11:41 AM ---------- 6÷2(1+2) = ? brackets first 6÷2(3) = ? It also helps if you insert an otherwise assumed multiplication sign. 6÷2x(3) = ? now the parentheses mean nothing as they contain no operation, so can be removed, and since division and multiplication in the absence of parentheses are simply performed left-to-right, you get 3x3 = ? 9
As an engineer let me give you a piece of advise. I give this advise to not only my interns, but to my executives above me. If there are two ways of doing somethings and one of those ways is incorrect. Eventually someone will do it wrong way. Don't provide a facility for the user to do it the wrong way. The failure is not on the part of the user solving the equation, it is on the author of the equation. He did not clearly communicate his intent.
im still holding with with this argument 6:2(1+2) > 6:2(3) . 6:6 =1 in hebrew everything is right to left so nick shhhh
(Bold for emphasis) When I read the daily paper at lunch, there's a daily brainteaser-type-thing that I like to do. By "like to do" I mean pick holes in the way the problem is communicated, as I can care less what the author intended me to find. By the way, I got 9. However, I agree completely with your point that the people who should be blamed are not the folks who say "nine!", or the folks who say "one!", but rather the jackass who made the equation in the first place.
It's 9. Since it's written in compact form and they didn't use double brackets, it can't be 1. 6÷2(1+2)= 9 6÷(2(1+2))= 1