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Confusing... (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 months ago by kaptaan_jack@lemmy.ml to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[-] LonelyWendigo@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

It's not arbitrary just because you don't understand the how and why of it. The expression could certainly be written more clearly, but that's an entirely separate matter.

[-] 0ops@lemm.ee 0 points 11 months ago

Um, I think we're agreeing. The expression is not arbitrary, it only has one correct answer. We agree on that. I'm saying that using PEMDAS is an arbitrary convention. If we all agreed to rewrite our equations in PEASMD, it would be ugly, you'd probably need more parentheses, but it would still work. People in this thread have used set theory to explain that PEMDAS makes more sense, and it totally does, but it doesn't strictly have to be that way.

I'm actually finding two different definitions of arbitrary on the Internet: 1. Based on individual discretion, 2. Random. I had the first in mind.

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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