Hi, my name is Matthew and I stopped at algebra in high school and was never able to really go beyond that and have recently seen one of the popular facebook posts on a math equation that is 50/50 down the middle about the answer so I am hoping someone can answer and tell me about juxtaposition as simply as you can and is it 100% correct and/or how does it factor into in the order of operations or is this a current theory thats debatable? The equation goes as such:
8/2(2+2)=?
The answer I come to is to do parentheses first of course so it looks like this:
8/2(4)=?
now after this I was told at least in algebra that after you solved what is in the parentheses and only a single number remains, that you drop the parentheses cause its purpose has been fulfilled, so the equation looks like:
8/2*4=?
and from here it would be 8/2=4*4=16 and even typed into every calculator i've looked up, that the answer is 16. But here's the divide, the other half says the answer is 1 and they state that not only do you not get rid of the () but that you do 2(4) first, then one and only one person I saw mentioned juxtaposition but left it at that. A brief view of the term at first told me what was taught in algebra, that 2(4) is a simplified way of writing 2*(4) and the * isn't needed cause it's implied, even when I look up what I assume are math teachers on youtube(I know youtube isn't at all credible, but even simple algebra videos on math related study websites showed me the same thing), they all say what I was taught, that the () gets dropped and you simply put a * in it's place.
