Eli5, people are saying that pemdas is absolute and that 1000 / 5(4-2) = m could be either 100 or 400 because the variable m isn’t defined. Could you all elaborate on what that means?

Question

Eli5, people are saying that pemdas is absolute and that 1000 / 5(4-2) = m could be either 100 or 400 because the variable m isn’t defined. Could you all elaborate on what that means?

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Answer 1

It’s bad, ambiguous notation that’s confusing on purpose in order to create social media flame wars.

People who write math for real would write either (1,000 / 5)(4 – 2) or 1,000 / [5(4 – 2)] or just use a horizontal line instead of a slash to represent division.

As written in the OP, it’s unclear if the bunching together of 5(4-2) is supposed to imply parentheses, or if it’s just inconsistent formatting.