Quote:
Originally Posted by winders
Bill, Bill, Bill......
Mathematical convention - AoPSWiki
Math 1010 on-line
A "convention" is not mathematics. It's not a basic property of mathematics. Solving from left to right is a convention. Tomorrow, the notation could be changed to right to left and the mathematics would still work. We use infix notation today. That is a convention. Sometime in the future, it could be decided that we will be using postfix (Reverse Polish) notation. The mathematics would still be the same.
If the mathematics community decided that implicit multiplication (juxtaposition) has precedence over division or explicit multiplication, only the notation would change. The mathematics would be unaffected.
Don't go confusing conventions with properties of mathematics or the foundations of mathematics.
Scott |
When someone says 'In case of doubt, use parentheses!', they are talking to the author not the solver, the solver is restricted in his actions by the fundamental properties of the real # system under the operations defined for that system.
Those fundamental properties are well defined and not subject to ad hoc changes that someone dreams up as a convenience sure there are other notation system and other sets that they act upon. But here and now the discussion is not related to those other systems. You don't understand the basics of this one so I doubt that you will ever grasp the nuances of the others either.
You seem ready to believe any one that has posted on the subject, no matter how little fundamental basis they have for their assertions.
As I said I give up on trying to educate you, this is a religion w/ you and not a science based on fundamentals that can be written clearly and form a consistent unambiguous method of evaluating any expression w/o ad hoc rules and exceptions.