I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.
It's about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it's worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I'm probably biased because I wrote it :)
The expression 6/2(1+2) involves both multiplication and division. According to the order of operations (PEMDAS/BODMAS), you should perform operations inside parentheses first, then any multiplication or division from left to right.
Certainly! The expression 6/2(1+2) is ambiguous due to the implicit multiplication. Let's solve it in both ways:
Implicit multiplication with higher priority:
[ \frac{6}{2}(1+2) ]
First, solve the parentheses:
[ \frac{6}{2}(3) ]
Now, perform the division:
[ 3 \times 3 = 9 ]
Implicit multiplication with the same priority as division:
[ \frac{6}{2(1+2)} ]
Again, solve the parentheses:
[ \frac{6}{2(3)} ]
Now, perform the multiplication first:
[ \frac{6}{6} = 1 ]
So, depending on the interpretation of implicit multiplication, you can get different results: 9 or 1.
I think it's funny that ChatGPT figured out 1 and 9 but has the steps completely backwards. First it points out what has high priority and then does the exact opposite, both times 🤣