Yes, she votes, as do millions just like her
(media.scored.co)
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Indeed. I even went another step and found this unhelpful thing, on the wiki regarding multiplication:
"In algebra, multiplication involving variables is often written as a juxtaposition (e.g., xy for x times y or 5x for five times x), also called implied multiplication. The notation can also be used for quantities that are surrounded by parentheses (e.g., 5(2) or (5)(2) for five times two). This implicit usage of multiplication can cause ambiguity when the concatenated variables happen to match the name of another variable, when a variable name in front of a parenthesis can be confused with a function name, or in the correct determination of the order of operations."
Then it says "CITATION NEEDED," meaning THEY'RE FIGHTING ABOUT IT THERE TOO.
I'm quitting it before I develop an eye-twitch.
Watch this before you go, though. My favorite video I've seen on the topic. If the conclusions are to be believed, the confusion comes about because specifically North American teachers are retards.
PEMDAS is an oversimplified teaching tool, and not a hard and fast rule. It seemingly gets broken by juxtaposition/implied multiplication, as you mention. NA teachers actually petitioned calculator companies to switch from "PEJMDAS" (J = Juxtaposition, and moved higher in the order of operations), to PEMDAS...because they're obsessed with it. Which leads to different calculators giving different answers. The PEMDAS answers make less sense.
So I think you're correct that the most logical answer is probably "1."
Oh boy, thank you for that. That's a lot better than leaving it in confusion and ambiguity.
I'm satisfied that PEJMDAS is the answer. Strict adherence to PEMDAS appears to be a localized, time-specific phenomenon contained to ignorant North American teachers, and the calculator manufacturers they managed to bullying into abandoning a convention that engineers, scientists, and mathematicians considered so blisteringly obvious as to be too banal to have to explain. Unfortunately, this retardation seems to have spread to students taught by these ignorants, starting in the 1990s.
It's funny, because on social media the PEMDAS adherents are so cocksure and condescending about their certainty, when they're actually the ones who don't know that PEMDAS was only a Wittgenstein's Ladder shortcut on the way to PEJMDAS. The rest of the world and every actual professional who works with math is sniggering behind their hands.
Two more videos, if you're interested:
How School Made You Worse at Math
The Order of Operations is Wrong
The first one is great, the second one is alright but draws some interesting conclusions.