User1: good morning everyone
User2: good morning
User3: morning
User4: Hi folks,
User4: I've a bit of software I wrote for the mathematical order of operations, for example to illustrate that 1+2*3=7 rather than 9.
User4: A video of its available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc9cu-ekFrg
User4: Is it worth packaging it and putting it into ubuntu?  I've got all the source code, its written in wx widgets and is all my own code.
User4: ?
User2: hi martsbradley
User4: Hi Highvoltage
User2: it looks like it could be useful to someone, so why not :)
User5: User4 just an idea, if you could make it show infix/postfix etc notations with that tree, I'm sure it would be useful to some CS students
User2: User4 what does it do with http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/48293/ ? :)
User4: I'll boot up my other computer and try it out.
User2: User4 but yes, I think it would be nice, and if it's stable and not otherwise troublesome we'd probably include it in edubuntu too.
User4: 288 it gives
User4: It had a little problem with the 2(9, it did not recognise it as a multiply so had to insert the * between the 2 and the opening bracket
User4: Is 288 the expected answer, I'm sure it is but I'm no math teacher.
User2: ah see the way I was taught in school "48 / 2(9+3)" and "48 / 2 * (9+3)" would give different answers. but I guess that's one of the sucky things about differences in math across different regions that that post highlights
User4: I was taught that the 2(9+3) means add 9 & 3 then multiply by 2, even though the multiply operator was omitted.
User2: User4 yep, same here.
User2: and if you do that then you get to the answer "2"
User4: I was taught by the BODMAS expression, brackets order division multiply add subtract it stands for, therefore the brackets come first, so 9+3 =12
User4: Then 48 /2
User4: 24 * 12 must be 288
User2: oopes, I meant 24 instead of 2
User2: (man that chapaign we had at work went straight to my head)
User4: Lucky u.
User4: So we agree 288 is correct answer.
User2: well...
User2: ...
User2: that's debatable depending on how you were taught
User2: but I think it's the right answer for your software to give
User4: I think that Ireland and America is taught in same way, not sure about Europe + rest of world.
User2: oh no, I was right first time, I would end up with 2 as the answer
User2: (Implied multiplication)
User2: 48 Ã· 2(9+3)=
User2: 48 Ã· 2(12)=
User2: 48 Ã· 24=
User2: 2
User4: I'll look at that page to see what they came up with
User2: yeah I'm no mathemetician either. but I just think it would be nice if your software could be aware of these kind of things. just as a wish list :)
User4: Yea they have two different answers also, not good.  I thought mathematics was the 'universal language'
User2: heh, yeah it has some similar problems as natural languages though. in some areas other conventions were formed so some expressions mean different things
User2: that's why different calculators also give different answers for the same equation
User4: ok thanks for the help, bye.
User2: bye!
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