this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

https://zeta.one/viral-math/

I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.

It's about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it's worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I'm probably biased because I wrote it :)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I didn't know until now that I unconsciously use strong implicit multiplication (meaning that I get the answer "1"). I believe it happens more or less as a consequence of starting inside the parentheses and then working my way out.

It is a funny little bit of notational ambiguity, so it is funny that people get riled up about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

It is a funny little bit of notational ambiguity

It's not ambiguous - it's The Distributive Law. You got the correct answer, you just forgot what the rule is called (as opposed to people who forget the rule altogether).