Can you solve 8÷2(2+2)?

8

 

OMG word problems. Dude. Does Johnny get benefits? Is the truck governed? Does Johnny get to keep the FSC? Is this 1099?

 

factor in a bad case of hemorrhoids, and Johnny gonna be itching all the way to the poor house.

 

I'll take that bet. You'll never get complete agreement but the idea that multiplication and division are treated equally and you work from left to right gives 16 as the correct answer.

8÷2(2+2)
1st you do 2+2, now you have no brackets and are left with 8÷2x4. Left to right you end up with 16.
8÷[2(2+2)] on the other hand...

 

It all depends on how you treat the term 2(4)—implicit or explicit.

If you treat it implicitly, then it's:

8
------- = 1
2(2+2)

If you treat it explicitly, as most programming languages do (and Texas Instruments calculators), then it's:

8
---- * (2+2) = 16
2

Make sense? Coming from the programming industry, my brain is wired for the latter.

 

So I just put it into Google to see what it said.
Google say the answer is 16.

 

Google is probably doing that in Javascript, which will treat it as explicit.

 

42

 

So I just tried a couple of experiments in Excel and in Access Visual Basic. Both require explicit terms in the expression.



And in Access VB



we get...



Neither will let you do an implied multiplication.

 

Because the answer is 16.