• Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Those rules are based on axioms which are used to create statements which are used within proofs. As far as I know statements are pretty common and are a foundational part of all math.

    Defining math as a language though is also going to be pointless here. It’s not really a yes or no thing. I’ll say it is a language but sure it’s arguable.

    And again laws are created using statements. I have plenty of textbooks that contain “statements”

    • Those rules are based on axioms

      Nope! The order of operations rules come from the proof of the definitions in the first place. 3x4=3+3+3+3 by definition, therefore if you don’t do the multiplication first in 2+3x4 you get a wrong answer (having changed the multiplicand).

      As far as I know statements are pretty common

      And yet you’ve not been able to quote a Maths textbook using that word.

      are a foundational part of all math

      Expressions are.

      It’s not really a yes or no thing

      It’s really a no thing.

      And again laws are created using statements

      Not the Laws of Maths. e.g. The Distributive Law is expressed with the identity a(b+c)=(ab+ac). An identity is a special type of equation. We have…

      Numerals

      Pronumerals

      Expressions

      Equations (or Formula)

      Identities

      No statements. Everything is precisely defined in Maths, everything has one meaning only.

      • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Order of operations is not a hard rule. It is a convention. It’s something agreed upon but is it not something that is universally true.

        Solve for X

        X^2=4

        • Order of operations is not a hard rule

          Yes it is.

          It is a convention.

          Left to right is a convention. Left Associativity is a hard rule. Left to right is a convention which obeys the rule of Left Associativity.

          It’s something agreed upon

          It’s something that is a natural consequence of the definitions of the operators in the first place. As soon as Multiplication was defined in terms of Addition, that guaranteed we would always have to do Multiplication before Addition to get right answers.

          is it not something that is universally true

          Yes it is! All of Maths is universally true! 😂

          Solve for X X^2=4

          You know that’s no longer an order of operations problem, right?

          • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            What proof do you have that using a left to right rule is universally true?

            From my understanding It’s an agreed convention that is followed which doesn’t make it a universal truth. If we’re all doing it just to make things easier to understand, that implies we could have a right to left rule. It’s also true that not all cultures right in the same way.

            But here is an interesting quote from Florian Cajori in his book a history of mathematical notations.

            Lastly here is an article that also highlights the issue.

            https://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2013/03/15/the-horror-of-pemdas

            Some of you are already insisting in your head that 6 ÷ 2(1+2) has only one right answer, but hear me out. The problem isn’t the mathematical operations. It’s knowing what operations the author of the problem wants you to do, and in what order. Simple, right? We use an “order of operations” rule we memorized in childhood: “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally,” or PEMDAS, which stands for Parentheses Exponents Multiplication Division Addition Subtraction.* This handy acronym should settle any debate—except it doesn’t, because it’s not a rule at all. It’s a convention, a customary way of doing things we’ve developed only recently, and like other customs, it has evolved over time. (And even math teachers argue over order of operations.)