#loudlynotunderstandingthings

1/7 #MathsMonday 1917 (ii) - Lennes' letter (Terms and operators) I've seen many refer to https://www.jstor.org/stable/2972726 as a change in #Mathematics precedence rules, and yet nothing at all actually changed! It does show that 100 years ago though, even then there were people #LoudlyNotUnderstandingThings #Math terms and rules! 😂 On page 93 he says "it is agreed that each symbol applies only to the term immediately following it" which shows he understands #Maths Terms and Left Associativity...

6/6 So remember, the "M" for multiplication in the mnemonics (BEDMAS, PEMDAS, whatever) refers LITERALLY to multiply signs. If there's no multiply sign, then it's NOT "multiplication", it's a Term. If there's a bracketed term which has a coefficient, then the coefficient has to be distributed, and that's part of solving Brackets/obeying The Distributive Law. Anyone who says anything different to that is just #LoudlyNotUnderstandingThings #MathsIsNeverAmbiguous #DontForgetDistribution

3/7 I've even seen one say (of calculators) "sometimes it obeys (IM), sometimes it doesn't". That's because the calculator in question obeys Terms but NOT TDL, and it's behaviour is 100% consistent with that (but confusing to someone who has lumped them together as IM). They even went as far as claiming "PEMDAS is wrong", cos they were treating it like rules (whilst also #LoudlyNotUnderstandingThings like the actual rules TDL and Terms), and made up a new mnemonic, so let's look at mnemonics...

@bemmesr@mathstodon.xyz "I'd suggest you read https://math.berkeley.edu/~wu/order5.pdf as it essentially makes the same argument I'm making" - and is contradicted by Maths textbooks and proofs. 🙄 Note the complete lack of textbook references "perhaps with more clarity and conviction" - #LoudlyNotUnderstandingThings "It's not an uncommon idea" - the idea of Earth being flat used to not be an uncommon idea "this has turned out to be somewhat of a research task" - you could've just read my thread in the first place 🙄