🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <51q1mf$daf@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
William.B.Shippen.Jr@dartmouth.edu (William B. Shippen Jr.) writes:

> I remember my parent's generation pulling their hair out over 'New
> Math', and now it's my turn.
> My sixth grader came home to work on 'The order of operations'.
> According to his Addison-Wesley textbook, the order of operations in
> equations is as follows:
> 
> "Compute inside parentheses first.
>  Multiply and divide next, from left to right.
>  Add and subtract last, from left to right."
> 
> Examples:
> (14 - 4) X 2 = 10 X 2= 20    and 
>  14 - 4 X 2 = 14 - 8 = 6
> 
> WHEN I WENT TO SCHOOL......
> We computed inside the parentheses first then followed through totally
> left to right, which gives a different answer than this 'new' (to me)
> method.
> Throwing in this 'multiplication and division next FOLLOWED BY addition
> and subtraction' changes a seemingly basic math principle.
> I would say 14 - 4 X 2 = 20. and 14 - (4 X 2) = 6
> And a random sampling of co-workers agree.
> Ultimately, fighting the teacher, school, text publisher & millions of
> kids taught this method seems ludicrous, but..........
> 
> QUESTIONS;
> 1) Is my method incorrect?
> 2) Is this method new?
> 3)  If I'm right....what next?
> 4)   Wrong? Go back to school?  ;-)
> 
> e-mail welcome:
> bvx@dartmouth.edu

  I have read most of the posts to this long thread. It should be a
long thread for it warrants much attention. Most of the posters who say
that Mr. Shippen is wrong on 4 accounts are "mischevious"
 It is my opinion that Mr. Shippen is correct on all accounts and that
a book such as he describes should never, ever have been published. And
if it were my son , stuck with learning this conventional hockeypuck, I
would be very irate and the school board would have received word ,
loud words from me.

  Mathematics is the science of precision.

  We do not , ever, set up conventions and fob those conventions off as
mathematics.

  It is true, that most math majors seldom take a course in SYMBOLIC
LOGIC, for if they had, they would know immediately how to answer Mr.
Shippen.


  In Logic course we learn that you have to be precise and therefore
all orders of operations are handled by a paranthesis

  thus  (((9x4)-7)/.4) is all clear and precise

  No, no , no  math is never learning "Popeye exclaimed"

  Math is never memorizing conventions of divide before subtract
baloney
, in China a lot of things are reversed written so do the US memorize
something different convention from the Chinese?

  It takes but a few minutes to teach young people how to be clear and
precise with the parenthesis,  just a few minutes

  But with memorizing the above pitifulness of Addison Wesley,
something that is a pure fabricated convention that is not even
international, the amount of time that poor youngsters have to memorize
that crap and have to memorize it both ways--- in deciphering what
another thought was the correct convention and in writing a string of
numbers with assorted operations in the first place.  Youngsters can
spend weeks and weeks on trying to get this stupid convention down.

   Whereas it takes but a minute to teach the hard -fast and precise
rule of parantheses


  You are correct Mr. Shippen in drawing attention to the poorly
written textbook of Addison Wesley

  To the fact that our youngsters should not be subjected to these
"Conventional sticks of baloney" in a mathematics class. There is
little that ones has to remember with paranthesis--- both the writing
thereof or in the deciphering thereof

  and if anyone writes out a string of numbers with operations and is
too too lazy to include the parentheses throughout, figuring that you
have memorized some idiotic convention rule,  well, just send it back
to the author with a nastygram telling him that you do not care for his
laziness

  That Addison Wesley book ought to be removed from the market and the
time spent in mathematics should never be in the teaching of
conventions. Mathematics is the science of precision, not the study of
some conventions that US has over say Southeast Asia or British maths.

Teach them the parantheses ordering, and where there are no parantheses
send it back the lazy author to insert paranthesis.