this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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PEMDAS isn't obvious to "common people"? Why not? It doesn't seem like an arbitrary convention to me...
If "×" means "groups of," then "2+2×4" means "two plus two groups of four" which only makes sense, to me, to be read as "two plus two groups of four" rather than "two plus two groups of four"
Sure the order of operations could be arbitrarily different, but I feel like we settled on that order because it simply makes more sense intuitively.
I'm aware of the possibility that it only feels natural and intuitive to me because I was taught that way, but I at least don't think that applies to this specific example
Clearly not if most of these answers are incorrect. If it was obvious, there wouldn't be as many answers as there are.