Chalk

Interesting article on osnews.com All desktop calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own . Personally I have never owned a handheld calculator and I have only rarely used a dekstop one. But I found lots of thought provoking ideas in this article. I always used to try to get across to students that the decimal representation of a number is frequently a waste of time. That a number is 2*pi or sqrt(2) tells you a lot more than its value tells you. So what you sometimes need is calculators that let you enter unevaluated expressions – they often give you more information. The problem then comes down to specifying what you want to evaluate, and in what format.

tfl;dr!

A ridiculous amount of blablabla that failed to get to any point (other than the repeated assertion that all the rest are wrong) after scrolling down about twenty times (and judging by the scrollbar, about a mere tenth of the article).

Guy needs to learn how to make a point. Make it (all the calculators are wrong), state why in a few bullet points, and then elaborate in detail.

It is perhaps worth noting that there are three ways to perform a calculation.

The first everybody knows is 3 + 4 * 5.
The second, more mindscrewey way is 3 4 + 5 *.
And the third will be familiar to programmers, it’s the same thing (3 + 4 * 5) but since it is evaluated as a phrase, operator precedence comes into play. Is it (3 + 4) * 5 or is it 3 + (4 * 5)?

What can we take away from this? That numbers are complicated and people won’t agree that 1 + 1 = 2. You’ll find “proof” online that one plus one actually equals three. And zero. That’s why the best way to hoodwink people is to start messing with numbers. Like those charts with the important axis fiddled with to make the point they want made…

<shrug>

numbers are complicated

Cannot disagree with that.

Guy needs to learn how to make a point

Yes. The comments agree.

the best way to hoodwink people is to start messing with numbers

A favourite trick of the university administration was to invent a formula to explain their allocation of money to different departments. The mathematics department was not hoodwinked by this. Bernard Scott, its founding professor, observed that if you give people a formula people will bow down in awe before it.

<shrug> indeed.
But, the forum was particularly quiet this morning.

23 – BIDMAS or DIE!

BODMAS surely? Brackets Of Divide Multiply Add Subtract. At least, that’s how I was taught it at school in the 60’s.

BODMAS and BIDMAS are alternative acronyms with the same meaning – O for Orders or I for Indices, but with the same meaning.

Brackets, Orders, …?

Brackets, Orders, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction.

It was BODMAS back in when I was at school, but my wife being a teacher, corrected my work. So its now BIDMAS.

It was BEDMAS when I was at school (brackets, exponents…).

I was taught: Brackets of division multiplication addition subtraction

I was taught: Brackets of division multiplication addition subtraction

Me too, but the teacher in question, er, “left a little to be desired”¹
Jeffrey’s explanation fits way better than what I was taught, and Drucks seems to be a better descriptive acronym

¹ One of many confusions he produced in my mind² so don’t ever try me on calculus