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25 - ⁵/₅ = 25 - 1 = 24
If you wrote it vertically: 25 - 5 ————— = 24 5
But once you lay it out on one line, you have to use prins to prioritize addition / subtraction:
(25 - 5) / 5 = 20 / 5 = 4
Some YouTube mathematicians deep-dive into this.
5-5/5 != 4
5-5/5 != Sandwich
Comment section full of people looking for an opportunity to argue
No it isn’t
WHAT!
#DAMN YOU MATHEMATICIANS! YOU GOT ME AGAIN!!!
ASCII hack failure of language. Even in mathematics, ! has multiple meanings like with Boolean NOT. We need a science, math, and language reformation to remove non intuitive narcissistic names, and implied contextual meanings.
I believe you mean, “nice pun!”
You might find Lojban interesting if you are not already aware. (I haven’t tried to learn it myself, I just know it exists)
If someone wants to start a Lojban pun community, I would definitely subscribe just to learn about Lojban.
Although, if no one posted in the community, I wouldn’t be sure if it was a perfectly logical language or the community was just dead.
Relevant xkcd
4! = …Wait, that’s literally the point of the post this time
Unexpected expected factorial
Unexpected incorrect answer in comments
Except it is correct. 4!=24
But then the username would be four_factorial
I understand why this is wrong (order of operations dictates the division happens first, so it’s really 25 - 1 = 24), but why is it funny? I don’t mean “This isn’t funny,” I think I’m just missing the joke.
4! Is meant to be 4 factorial. 4! = 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24
The fuck is a “factorial”? They didn’t teach me that one in high school math and I couldn’t afford college.
Factorial means n! = (n)(n-1)(n-2)… etc. down to 1, where n is a positive integer. It’s used to calculate the different number of configurations of a set of elements, mainly in combinatorics.
Like if you have four different objects and you want to know how many different configurations you can order them in, you have four choices for the first object, then three for the second, then two for the third, then one for the final slot. So the answer is 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24 = 4!.
What’s the point of factorials?
Im sorry your highschool curriculum failed to teach you. I learned factorals in jr highschool
Or if you don’t know order of operations, then you probably also don’t know factorials, so 20 / 5 = 4
Aha! Got it, thank you so much.
And here I was thinking I was still decent at math. I got bamboozled…
Everybody forgets the factorial…
Especially when we have never seen that shit before
4! Is a factorial which means it’s 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24
Totally missed that. Thank you.
I see no one has explained yet, so I’ll give it a shot. He is excited about math, and that needs to be encouraged.
4 factorial
The exclamation point denotes the factorial function. 4! = 4 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 1
The exclamation point makes it right. The formula, when worked with proper order of operations, equals 24, which is equal to 4 factorial (4!) 1 * 2 * 3 * 4=24
Cause math people has a weird humor?
Sorry to said that, but you made my guess quite real.
The exclamation point in the answer, from a math perspective, makes it 4 factorial: 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24, which is the correct answer.
Could it be you’re responding to the wrong person?
Indeed, it could.
Promptly Evacuate Manure Drain And Septic
The answer in the comic is correct. It’s just written in a way to make you as the reader think he’s got it wrong for a second.
The ! operator in mathematics indicates a function called a factorial. Four factorial, or 4! = 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 24. Which is the correct answer if you follow the proper order of operations.
Best math meme so far.
Thank God this meme is muted
Ok this is funny
I’m only going to say this once but if I’m doing a sum and you want me to do it in a specific order, use brackets. That’s what brackets are for. Don’t expect me to do things in a predetermined order because I literally can’t be bothered and I will never care enough to do that. I’m already doing a sum so don’t push it, okay bud
well then you should stop doing math cuz you’re doing it wrong
Thanks I take enormous pleasure in never doing any maths at all ever, largely for reasons like this 😌
But that’s a bit like saying “If you’re going to talk to me, put the adjectives before the nouns,” even in Spanish where they come after. Mathematical notation is a language and it has a syntax. Sure, you can decide to ignore that syntax, or insist that people modify their use of it for you, but it’s not really a reasonable expectation.
I think this is very stupid for a number of reasons. Why is there an order of operations that supersedes the direction the operations are written in? That’s at best dim witted and at worst deliberately misleading. Grog write left to right. Grog read left to right. Grog do sum left to right.
There is absolutely no reason in the world why anybody should have to know that division comes before subtraction. That’s fucking insane, man. What is the point of writing things down if you’re only going to do them in a set order anyway? May as well have a big jumble of letters and numbers and symbols on the page at that point, like who cares. The whole point of writing things down is to express concepts. Can’t do that with any kind of nuance if you’re going to read it one way anyway, no matter how you write it down. That would be like saying you always pronounce certain letters at the start of words even if they’re in the middle. Completely nuts.
If all people did was simple equations like the one in the OP, you’d probably be right, but math syntax has to deal with all kinds of equations. Your way, I can’t write 3x^2–4x+5. Instead, I’d have to write ((((3x)^2)−4)x)+5. That’s WAY more obnoxious. It’s better to have an unambiguous syntax that covers all the cases and lets me write equations in an more simple form.
Clever! lol
for those that didn’t get it: clever factorial = brilliant
Jokes and tricks that hinge on unclear communication (eg: not using parenthesis or other notation to make intent clear), and then are smug when people are tricked, remind me of the old xkcd https://xkcd.com/169/
I just saw some jokes about factorials so at least I got this one, heh.
Sorry but what is unclear in OPs image?
25 - 5 ÷ 5when read naively left to right looks like it would be “25 - 5 = 20. Then take that and divide by 5, for an answer of 4”. It would be clearer to write it as(25 - 5) ÷ 5or25 - (5 ÷ 5)depending on what’s intended.You see those kind of “gotcha!” posts online sometimes, where someone posts a problem that tempts you into doing order of operations wrong.
Someone who sees how to do it correctly immediately and thinks everyone knows that is invited to view https://xkcd.com/2501/ as well.
People don’t read math like that tho, as you learn the order of operations in year 2. Also, the original post is correct,
25 - 5/5 = 4!How would this work out in a rtl language? Because the reader would be used to parsing language in the opposite direction. Does that mean the same equation has two objectively correct answers?
Hey, Munroe is a rather cool and very intelligent engineer. Very witty writer, and awful at drawing. But his philosophy is mid at best. He is not an authority, and is often wrong or common place when it comes to social topics and human affairs. He understands communication in a very techy engineering dimension. There’s no need to take his comics as anything but what they are. One white dude’s anecdotic commentary on his own very limited experience of the human condition. He knows squat about human communication, sociology, psychology or postmodernism.
Natively? It’s a math equation there is only one way to read it as far as I am aware.
Hear hear
Naively, not natively. Someone who wasn’t a good math student, or just doesn’t remember, might read it left to right and come to the wrong conclusion. The rules for order-of-operations are, so far as I know, arbitrary, and different people coming at it without instruction (ie: naively) could arrive at different conclusions. Knowing that you’re supposed to do division first isn’t obvious.
You could read
25 - 5 ÷ 5as “25 - 5 is 20. 20 divided by 5 is 4” or you could read it (correct, per the standard rules) as “25 minus… hold on… 5 divided by 5 is one. Now 25 subtract that from the 25 sitting over there, and get 24.” This isn’t the same kind of error as, like, “5 divided by 5 is 0”You could read
25 - 5 ÷ 5as "25 - 5 is 20.You could. You could also lower your pants and drop a massive turd and call that the answer. Both answers would be equally wrong.
PEMDAS isn’t a suggestion that you follow when it suits you, like religion. It’s how math is communicated, unambiguously.
In any case, if that’s where we lost you, then I’ve calculated the chance of you catching the factorial as √-1.
On the extremely rare occasion when I have the misfortune to be performing a mathematical calculation, I take enormous pleasure in carrying out the operations exclusively left to right unless indicated otherwise by brackets, which is the correct way to indicate this. If you want me to do a calculation separately, put brackets around it or bugger off. It’s your choice, really
You’re being weirdly aggressive, but okay.
Most people know the symbols for addition subtraction multiplication and division. Far fewer people know the established order of operations. That’s what powers those “only 3% of people solve this problem correctly!” math memes.
But okay. Communicate badly (ie: by failing to acknowledge your audience’s context) and be smug if you want.
You do realize your “You’re communicating badly” attitude is the only smugness happening here, right?
Reread
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