But, since your rule has the D&M as well as the A&S in brackets does that mean your rule means you have to do D&M as well as the A&S in the formula before you do the exponents that are not in brackets?

But seriously. Only grade school arithmetic textbooks have formulas written in this ambiguous manner. Real mathematicians write their formulas clearly so that there isn't any ambiguity.

[–] Pipoca@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That's not really true.

You'll regularly see textbooks where 3x/2y is written to mean 3x/(2y) rather than (3x/2)*y because they don't want to format

3x
----
2y

properly because that's a terrible waste of space in many contexts.

[–] unoriginalsin@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You'll regularly see textbooks

That's what I said.

[–] Pipoca@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You generally don't see algebra in grade school textbooks, though.

[–] unoriginalsin@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

12 is a grade. I took algebra in the 7th grade.

[–] Pipoca@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Grade school is a US synonym for primary or elementary school; it doesn't seem to be used as a term in England or Australia. Apparently, they're often K-6 or K-8; my elementary school was K-4; some places have a middle school or junior high between grade school and high school.