Nope, not once was it ever said "Don't use this symbol! It confuses people!' because it doesn't.

It's a division sign. You divide what is before the sign by what is after it.

What is beautiful about math is that there isn't any ambiguity whatsoever, because the rules of math exist to interpret the symbols in exactly the same way no matter who does it. I also never heard of this 'implied multiplication' some other people speak about.

You might think it's dumb to have to write extra parentheses, but that's what you have to do to get the equation and answer you need. You can't just interpret it the way you think it was 'intended', you can only interpret it as it is written.

If you think having to write a few extra parentheses makes it confusing, you should see the symbols of used in mathematical proofs. Do a couple of those and you'll be longing to be able to write just a couple parentheses.

 

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Hold on guys while I contact some scientists to solve this for us

 

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Maybe I need to try again.


You can either use a notation system which requires 4-5 sets of parentheses to express even a moderately complex equation because you refuse to use numerators and denominators.


Or you can use a system which barely ever requires more than one set of parentheses to express a moderarely complex equation, because you actually use numerators and denominators.


It is pretty clear the latter is better. I am honestly shocked you were never taught that. You were seriously doing problems along the lines of


((2(2+3(3/7)))(7))(76/2(4-8(7/3)))


When you could have just written them out sensibly instead? I can't imagine how much time you all wasted just trying to decode parentheses that were completely unnesecary if you had just used more sensible notation to begin with. In fact, I can't imagine how you would even solve any variable equations you wrote out that way by hand. It would be so, so much more clumsy than using more conventional numerators and denominators to indicate your fractions instead of division symbols with tons of extra parentheses.

I'd like to see someone write out physics equations in a straight line without a numerator and a denominator and then try and solve it.

NO MAN EINSTEIN TOTALLY WOULD HAVE PREFERRED TO WRITE THINGS OUT IN ONE LINE AND USE A BAJILLION PARENTHESES INSTEAD!111

You guys are cute.

 

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It's not a matter of convenience, or how easy it is to write out. This is a math problem, not a work of art. If you are doing fractions, then WRITE IT AS A FRACTION. You don't use the division sign if you intended a fraction.

And if you were writing the equation into code or Excel, that's exactly how you'd have to write it, or you'd get an incorrect answer. Computers don't do ambiguity, either.

By the way, your equation:
((2(2+3(3/7)))(7))(76/2(4-8(7/3)))
would actually be written like this:
{{2[2+3(3/7)]}(7)}{76/2[4-8(7/8)]}

Parentheses are used first (), then braces [], then brackets {}. It is precisely this reason that pretty much all programming languages match opening and closing brackets for you, as does Excel, because sometimes it's necessary to extensively nest them.

 

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...


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/facepalm

Just because people typing on computers play it fast and loose with symbols doesn't change their meaning, nor does it change the fundamental rules of math.

When you do math on paper, you write and interpret the equations as they are written. Clearly, you wouldn't write out a bunch of brackets for a fraction: you'd write a fraction.

We have to use those brackets here in this medium because it's not easy to write out an exact fraction, and the brackets and braces are used to remove ambiguity that arises from the medium.

Which brings it back to my point: you can only interpret the problems as they are written.

 

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This link describes what I was trying to describe above:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/48293

 

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