• Zagorath@aussie.zone
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    11 months ago

    Most maths textbooks written by mathematicians.

    I don’t mean when they’re explaining “here’s how the order of operations works”. I mean in the basic way that they write more advanced problems and the answers they give for them.

    This video, and the prequel to it linked in the description, go into some detail showing who uses what convention and why.

    • Nihilore@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Interestingly I’ve wondered if this is regional, as a fellow Aussie I learned the same as you but it seems in other places they learn the other way

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        11 months ago

        FWIW I went to school in Asia, using an internationally-focused curriculum, rather than going through the Australian curriculum here in Aus.

        The video I linked includes some discussion with a calculator manufacturer who apparently is under the impression that teachers in North America are asking for strict BIDMAS, so the calculator manufacturer actually switched their calculators to doing that. Until they then got blowback from the rest of the world’s teachers, so they switched back to BIDMAS with juxtaposition being prioritised over division. The video also presents the case that outside of teachers—among actual maths and physics academics—prioritising juxtaposition is always preferred, even in North America.