Possible Duplicate:
What is 48÷2(9+3)?
Sorry if this has already been asked, my searches were fruitless...
There's been a buzz lately about the different results given by two different Casio brand calculators for the same expression. It would seem that there's debate on this issue.
The expression is thus:
6 ${\div}$ 2 (1 + 2)
It would appear that the debate is between the scope of the division operator in the equation. Now, as a software developer, I'm accustomed to well-defined operator precedence. The compiler knows exactly in what order terms will be evaluated. Thus, above, the answer is 9
.
However, it would appear that the two calculators differ because there's debate about that division operator regarding whether it divides the entire expression or only the first two terms. Rather, is it:
(6 ${\div}$ 2) (1 + 2)
or is it:
(6) ${\div}$ (2 (1 + 2))
Is there an official answer regarding the operator precedence for mathematics in general, outside the realm of computer programming and compilers?