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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The only thing that is absolute about PEMDAS is that it is absolutely useless for anything but the most basic of expressions. I think we can all agree that 2+3×4 is 14, not 20. But that’s about it.
As others have said, most of the PEMDAS stuff out there on facebook and the like are deliberately ambiguous to try to draw you in by anger and annoyance.
Specifically, the M and D in PEMDAS are sometimes supposed to be “M and D whichever is first” and sometimes “all the M’s then all the D’s” and there is no absolute rule about which. Combine this with the fact you have multiple ways of representing multiplication (x, *, a dot, a gap, two things next to each other without a gap) and division (/, ÷, a horizontal line with stuff above and below, little fractions like ½). Different people apply different rules depending on which of these are used. Well written things make it easy to tell from context what should be done. Badly written things need clarification. Memes need to be ignored.
Your best best is to claim that you asked your professor zirself, and ze said the answer is definitely <fill in some number that it definitely can’t be, like 250>. Make sure you use ze rather than he or she. Then, and this is the lost important bit, walk away. Don’t engage.
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