this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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You have declined to admit to a simple error you made (that early calculators lacked a stack, and that basic four function calculators all did and still do)
There's no point having a discussion with someone so stubborn that they can't admit a single mistake. I'm not sure whether you're trying to wind people up or just a bit dim, but while it's fun explaining mathematics - especially parts like this which touch on the formal parts and the distinction between maths itself and mathematical convention - this conversation is like trying to explain something to a particularly stuck-up dog. Except dogs aren't capable of being snarky.
The real tragedy is that you claim to be out there teaching kids this overcomplicated and false drivel.
Anyway, if you want to continue the discussion - maybe with a whiteboard would be best - I'm quite happy to, but only if you show that you're not just a troll. You can do that by admitting that you were wrong to say that all calculators have stacks, which shouldn't be hard if you have a shred of honesty, because I showed you two examples.
Another way you could demonstrate your good faith by admitting a mistake is admitting that when you said, in this post that:
you were wrong, and that this screenshot which I believe you first linked demonstrates it. In case that image disappears, it's from Advanced Algebra by J.V. Collins, pg 6.
On page 3, the concept of juxtaposition is introduced.
So that's an extra way you could demonstrate your good faith, by admitting to an error on your part not central to your argument that will show you actually are capable of admitting error.
Not me, must be you! 😂
They didn't 🙄
Have a stack, yes. I have one and it quite happily says that 2+3x4=14, something it can't do without putting "2+" on the stack while it does the 3x4 first 🙄
says someone too stubborn to admit making a mistake 🙄
Neither. I'm the one doing fact-checks with actual, you know, facts, like my simple calculator having a stack and correctly evaluating 2+3x4=14. It's the one I had in Primary school. The one in the first manual works the exact same way
So maybe start listening to what I've been trying to tell you then. 🙄 It's all there in textbooks, if you just decide to read more than 2 sentences out of them.
Facts, as per the syllabus and Maths textbooks. Again, you need to read more than 2 sentences to discover that 🙄
says person who has thus far refused to read more than 2 sentences out of the textbook 🙄
I wasn't wrong 🙄 The first manual that was linked to proved it. If you don't press the +/= button before the multiply then it will put the first part on the stack and evaluate the multiplication first, something it doesn't do if you press the +/= first to make it evaluate what you have typed in so far. 🙄 Every calculator will evaluate what you have typed in so far if you press the equals button, as pointed out in the first manual
The first of which had a stack 🙄 the second of which was a chain calculator, designed to work that way. You're the one being dishonest
No I wasn't
Which is a 1912 textbook. It also calls Factorising "Collections", and The Distributive Law "The Law of Distribution", and Products "Multiplication". Guess what? The language has changed a little in the last 110 years 🙄
Yep, published in 1912
And we now call them Products. 🙄 You can see them being called that in Modern Algebra, which was published in 1965. In fact, in Lennes' infamous 1917 letter, he used the word Product (but didn't understand, as shown by his letter), so the language had already changed then
There was no error. The language has changed since 1912 🙄
Of course I am. Doesn't mean I'm going to "admit" to an error when there is none 🙄
You failed to demonstrate any good faith so this is the end of this conversation. Your reply reveals that you even understand that you were wrong ("it's designed that way"; "the language changed") but are so prideful, so averse to ceding ground, that you just.. can't.. say it!
I'm not sure you have enough theory of mind to understand what that's like for a normal interlocutor, unfortunately.
The children you really ought to stop teaching are more mature than this. You're an embarrassment to the profession.