https://zeta.one/viral-math/

I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.

It’s about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it’s worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I’m probably biased because I wrote it :)

    • Agrivar@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Because those people also didn’t read the article and are reacting from their gut.

    • Pulptastic@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      I did read the article. I am commenting that I have never encountered strong juxtaposition and sharing why I think it is a poor choice.

      • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        You probably missed the part where the article talks about university level math, and that strong juxtaposition is common there.

        I also think that many conventions are bad, but once they exist, their badness doesn’t make them stop being used and relied on by a lot of people.

        I don’t have any skin in the game as I never ran into ambiguity. My university professors simply always used fractions, therefore completely getting rid of any possible ambiguity.

          • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            Mathematical notation however can be. Because it’s conventions as long as it’s not defined on the same page.

            • Mathematical notation however can be.

              Nope. Different regions use different symbols, but within those regions everyone knows what each symbol is, and none of those symbols are in this question anyway.

              Because it’s conventions as long as it’s not defined on the same page

              The rules can be found in any high school Maths textbook.

              • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                Let’s do a little plausibility analysis, shall we? First, we have humans, you know, famously unable to agree on an universal standard for anything. Then we have me, who has written a PhD thesis for which he has read quite some papers about math and computational biology. Then we have an article that talks about the topic at hand, but that you for some unscientific and completely ridiculous reason refuse to read.

                Let me just tell you one last time: you’re wrong, you should know that it’s possible that you’re wrong, and not reading a thing because it could convince you is peak ignorance.

                I’m done here, have a good one, and try not to ruin your students too hard.

                • 💡𝚂𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝙰𝗉𝗉𝗌📱@programming.dev
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  8 months ago

                  unable to agree on an universal standard for anything

                  And yet the order of operations rules have been agreed upon for at least 100 years, possibly at least 400 years.

                  unscientific and completely ridiculous reason refuse to read

                  The fact that I saw it was wrong in the first paragraph is a ridiculous reason to not read the rest?

                  Let me just tell you one last time: you’re wrong

                  And let me point out again you have yet to give a single reason for that statement, never mind any actual evidence.

                  you should know that it’s possible that you’re wrong

                  You know proofs, by definition, can’t be wrong, right? There are proofs in my thread, unless you have some unscientific and completely ridiculous reason to refuse to read - to quote something I recently heard someone say.

                  try not to ruin your students too hard

                  My students? Oh, they’re doing good. Thanks for asking! :-) BTW the test included order of operations.

                  • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    Just read the article. You can’t prove something with incomplete evidence. And the article has evidence that both conventions are in use.