I find the lack of intelligence depressing

[Asuka Soryu]

It's quite cute. Most people who awnsered are accustomed to "number" x 0 = 0

 

[MBergman]

Lack of mathematical prowess is small factor in the broad range of "intelligence". Most people forget about PEMDAS when they enter the real world. Way to generalize.

no. you can't do simple day-to-day equations without this, it's such a basic and important part of math that you don't ever forget.

Though I wouldn't call the equation in the OP a day-to-day one. It's just a clusterfuck meant to confuse.

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

Thank to this post, I learnt and understood the Order of Operations today. I was always been pretty bad at maths (and I still have gaping holes in my understanding of it), having to work on a combination of memory and logic to get answers (you'd really have to be me to see the thought process), however I ardently believe this is due to absolutely abysmal teaching of the subject at school. I can found my theory on having taught myself these things, and much more, since leaving school (trigonometry for example; a lot easier than it was made out to be).

So yeah, thanks for pointing this out to me. I fully understand the order of operations now. I feel a little embarrassed I have these pretty severe gaps in my education. I remember it being taught, but only vaguely, and from what I remember the girls at the front of the class were screeching something and the hag in front of them was barking something ineffectual back...

However, the equation has poor notation. It should be written: 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+(1-1)+(1*0). I recognise now the parenthesis in this equation aren't necessary, but they help make it clearer.

Edit: I asked three other friend this equation (actually 1+1+1x0, for obvious reasons), and they all got it wrong. Despite linking and explaining why it was 2, only one of them after an hour understood.

 

[Plumerou]

dont quote me on this or anything, but for some reason i find amusing when someone comes with an air of superiority with a big wall of text saying the answer is 0, its 14, plenty of people have already answered why

 

[MagicMouse]

The real idiot here is the person that wrote the equation, for doing it ass backwards and not adding any parentheses.

Unless of course, they were making a trick question, designed to trip people up.

Which they were.

Making your argument invalid.

 

[USSR]

Perhaps you fail to realize that facebook people may just throw in their vote with the majority?
Which could have been just slightly more than those who actually knew the answer, and it just caught on.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

In the last couple of months we have had two topics here with hundreds of replies discussing the outcome of a simple calculation problem. I think it was 48/2*(9+3) or something. So yeah, lots of people cannot do basic calculation...

it's 2. what do I win? I hope it's a cookie, please tell me it's a cookie

if your really interested go find the millions of replies the thread(s) got a while ago but your wrong


think of it like this


[48/2]*[(9+3)]

thats how it is supposed to be read, you do inside the parenthesis first, yes, but then you IMMEDIATELY go back to left to right(this is where near everyone messes up), which you do 48/2, which equals 24, and 24*12 = 288

type it into any scientific calculator and it will be 288


OT: i don't want to insult anyones intelligence, and with all the 1's out there mixed in with the minus sign i could see them putting 16, but the very very very basic rules of multiplying before you add is a super super basic that you learn all the way back in 2nd grade and apply through math all the way through high school/college/etc..

Lack of mathematical prowess is small factor in the broad range of "intelligence". Most people forget about PEMDAS when they enter the real world. Way to generalize.

no. you can't do simple day-to-day equations with this, it's such a basic and important part of math that you don't ever forget.

I also never forget to capitalize i's when they stand alone, and the start of sentences - something that seems to have escaped you.

See, just because you're not good in certain areas doesn't make you unintelligent.

i get the point you are trying to make right here, but most people don't capitalize their i's/beginning of sentences because they frankly don't give a shit to hit the shift button every time (personally i don't care, i'm getting my point across the exact same way as if i were to capitalize it, so there is no point, i will be lazy thank you very much) where in this math question you are in fact wrong and come up with a complete different answer.

if you came up with the same answer, then i probably wouldn't care, but it's math, your either right and your right or you are wrong, when it comes to english there is more bend-ability depending on how much of a grammar nazi you are.


edit: looking back i will admit that the problem is written in a way to confuse you a bit, if anyone actually in math wrote it out like that, especially without parentheses, you'd get a massive "wtf?" when you put that on the board/paper, so yeah i suppose getting zero isn't that big of a deal, although i'm slightly surprised by the number of people who did put zero instead of 16, compared to the 16 vs 14 side of it.

 

[magnuslion]

"everyone who answered 0 to be dumb".........

fail.

It's not 0.

I am aware. criticizing peoples intelligence while not being able to form a grammatically correct sentence was the fail.

 

[PhiMed]

That's not really a part of day to day equations. Not even cashiers deal with anything more than two-character equations. And even then, there's usually only addition and subtraction.

CAPTCHA:
must ecialli

"Cashier" is not a job that requires math skills, intelligence, or education.

A monkey could do it.

Many companies have eliminated the position entirely and have people check themselves out with a camera pointed at them to prevent theft.

The fact that you used the phrase "not even cashiers", as if they are somehow the epitome of real-life mathematics application, makes me wonder what, exactly, you think the "real world" is.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

As someone with a maths specific learning disability I find your lack of compassion depressing. Also you don't know the difference between intelligence and intellect, which makes me realise I'm probably smarter than you :]

 

[WrathOfAchilles]

I find your lack of faith disturbing. Wait, wrong thread. Yes the quickly declining intelligence quotient of the average person is depressing. I blame it squarely on WoW and Facebook. BTW, if you have a Facebook account you'll recognize intelligence quotient as I.Q. or at least you should. Suck it.

 

[rapidoud]

In the last couple of months we have had two topics here with hundreds of replies discussing the outcome of a simple calculation problem. I think it was 48/2*(9+3) or something. So yeah, lots of people cannot do basic calculation...

Except that was related to how it is expressed in text format here, as people couldn't tell whether it was 24*12 or 48/(24), depending how the () is treated in relation to the rest of it. An acceptable mistake as it's not written and not clear.

I find the elitism in the gaming community more profoundly disturbing, PC gamers who think consoles are 'casual' and 'dumb' that are 'holding us back' when they are just morons who blatantly fanboy hate anything.

Oh and where I'm from we use BODMAS/BOMDAS, brackets outside multiply divide add subtract.

 

[TheTaco007]

In the last couple of months we have had two topics here with hundreds of replies discussing the outcome of a simple calculation problem. I think it was 48/2*(9+3) or something. So yeah, lots of people cannot do basic calculation...

That math problem itself is flawed, as it is written poorly.
Explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-e8fzqv3CE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
(Skip to 2:32)

This one, however, is entirely straightforward, and anyone who passed 5th grade math should be able to do it. The fact that they can't makes me want to hurt people, but I've long since given up on humanity being intelligent.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

But that's... 14 times 0 right? Which is 0?

 

[Saelune]

To be fair, you are talking about people mulling around on Facebook. While I agree most peopel are stupid, this one is an unfair method of determining it. Were this on a real math test that an actual grade is dependant on, it should be examined carefully, but most people are not going to sit and really think about that.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Ok, I realise facebook isn't the place to go for intelligence but seriously...

This is one those vote quiz things that goes around. If you look the answer 0 is winning on almost a million. This means almost a million people since this stared, a week ago, cannot do simple maths.

What's more is this is just those on facebook who've seen this and bothered to answer. This is a seriously depressing realisation of what humanity is becoming.

Edited to remove typo in title.

You do realise that people are going to glance at this, see the 1x0, and assume the answer is 0. Facebook quizzes arent particularly important, and theres no real reason to try get it right.

 

[Zerazar]

OffT: So many trolls in this thread.

OT: I'm surprised about how many people don't understand math problems without parentheses, but I'd hardly call them stupid. During my relativly short life I have learned that math, for some reason, is just incredibly hard to understand for some people, regardless of their overall intelligence. Never understood why though. At least the simple math.

Also, it took me 3 solid tries to see the damn minus XD.

 

[Slangeveld]

That sum has nothing to do with intelligence whatsoever, let alone the answers.

But yes, the declining intelligence due to bad schooling IS depressing.

Edit: I had to look twice to notice the minus, and that's quite good. I was surprised at myself for noticing something like that. Ussually I miss details like that, which is exactly the reason why I had a bad score at the "Abstract" form of math back in high school.

Example: A brick wall is made of blabla bricks, if you want to make a house (shows picture of schematic house), how many bricks do you need. -> It usually had you count the amount of walls on a drawing, something I found highly childish and incredibly roundabout. The sums that went like !%*)!*!%^)8 x !*)*%!)%!%*) + )*!%!%)*%^40181058%190185018 -> That were solvable by systematically solving parts of it I found much 'easier'.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

These threads proclaiming the death of education based on order-of-operation mistakes are getting tiresome.

This has virtually nothing to do with intelligence.

The order of operations is a convention designed to simplify the writing of equations by eliminating the influence of the order of the terms. There is no deep mathematical reason why the order should be as it is, we've simply decided to adopt that convention. The convention isn't even universal - some programming languages simply evaluate from left to right.

You're not testing intelligence, you're just testing how well people were taught and managed to memorize a completely arbitrary convention often with virtually no use in day-to-day life.

 

[Nouw]

At first I was like 'they're right!' but then I was like 'heh BEDMAS.'

Lack of mathematical prowess is small factor in the broad range of "intelligence". Most people forget about PEMDAS when they enter the real world. Way to generalize.

I learnt it as BEDMAS