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[Grujah]

Braces is the plural of bracket. I think as long as we're nit-picking math we should nit-pick vocabulary too.

Source?  I've always learned that braces refer to {}, and we say "square/angle braces" sounds super weird.  Wikipedia says this is common in the US, which makes me a little wary because I'm Canadian.

Those are called curly brackets.

[eHalcyon]

Braces is the plural of bracket. I think as long as we're nit-picking math we should nit-pick vocabulary too.

Source?  I've always learned that braces refer to {}, and we say "square/angle braces" sounds super weird.  Wikipedia says this is common in the US, which makes me a little wary because I'm Canadian.

Those are called curly brackets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braces_(punctuation)#Braces

I am infected by America but I don't care.

[Ozle]

In English, I learned BEDMAS = Brackets, Exponents, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction. It really just seems that the instruction of arbitrary conventions has also become arbitrary.

Surely you learnt it in Maths......BADOOM TSCH!

There was this BBC show called "Look Around You", which was a parody of those grainy classroom instructional videos.  There was one episode for Maths.  I thought the s was just to make it sound funnier... didn't realize it was the Queen's English.  We just call it "Math" in North America.

I really wish I could link it, but most of the Look Around You videos appear to have been removed from Youtube.

Ahh, Peter Serafinowic, so under rated.
Also did the voice for Darth Maul !

[Insomniac]

We should just use
Reverse Polish Notation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation

Cuz its the best, easiest to implement, and needs no brackets.

Ie, your equation would translate into:

7 4 - 3 0 * + 1 +

(to used to mafia so I just doublepost instead of editing in forums too) 

this is called post fix, you do not need brackets for post fix or pre fix. IN FIX however is the forum that most people are used to seeing is ambiguous without brackets

[Grujah]

Yeah, I learned it as "postfix notation" in college but later learned that most people refer it to as reverse Polish (Polish being prefix notation).

Edit: and while you are at it, also change the numbering system to hexadecimal and make my life helluva easier.

[DStu]

Yeah, I learned it as "postfix notation" in college but later learned that most people refer it to as reverse Polish (Polish being prefix notation).

Edit: and while you are at it, also change the numbering system to hexadecimal and make my life helluva easier.

Hexadecimal I don't understand. All these numbers are written 0x..., and that SHOULD BE ZERO !!!!!111!!!!, or?

edit: some hints...

[qmech]

Brackets over Division, Multiplation, addition, Subtraction.

And what about exponents. What do I do with all these exponents!

As well as orders, we sometimes had the more accessible powers of.

[Grujah]

0x is just a prefix that people soemtimes use to identify that number is written in hexadecimal. Other common method is adding h on end.
It has actually no meaning except to identify number as hexadecimal instead of something else by mistake.

digits 0-9 have same value, A,B,C,D,E,F have value of 10-15, respectfully.

162 = 100 * 1 + 10 * 6 + 1 * 2 = 162.
So, A2 (can be written as 0xA1 or A1h or just A1) = 16 * A + 1 * 2 = 162

[Robz888]

Let the English major step up to the plate.

The answer... is 4. Am I right? I think I'm right. Yep, definitely 4. Take that middle schoolers. The (comparatively) old man still gots it.

The Oxford comma is great and often necessary. Who wants to say otherwise? I dare you.

[DStu]

... maybe I should have written more caps.
Edit: The sad thing is that it's really a plausible assumption that someone thinks like that...

[Kuildeous]

The Oxford comma is great and often necessary. Who wants to say otherwise? I dare you.

I'm a fan.

I can concur that in most sentences, there is no confusion if there is not an Oxford comma. I'm more concerned about those other sentences. You eliminate more confusion than you introduce if you use the Oxford comma, but you introduce more confusion than you eliminate if you omit the Oxford comma.

I also like calling it the serial comma, because why should Oxford own it? Screw them!

[eHalcyon]

Let the English major step up to the plate.

The answer... is 4. Am I right? I think I'm right. Yep, definitely 4. Take that middle schoolers. The (comparatively) old man still gots it.

The Oxford comma is great and often necessary. Who wants to say otherwise? I dare you.

If the Oxford comma eliminates confusion, use it.
If the Oxford comma introduces confusion, don't use it.
If it doesn't matter either way, why use it?

In the third case I usually leave it out, though sometimes I use it if it "sounds" better.

[Kirian]

Order of operations seems like such a silly thing.  It isn't a property intrinsic to the number system, but just a set of rules for interpreting our chosen method of expressing numbers and operations.  There's no particular reason multiplication has to come before addition, just convention.

Multiplication coming before addition is more objectively better than the reverse than Fahrenheit is objectively better than Celsius.

Except for the fact that Celsius is objectively better than Fahrenheit, I absolutely agree.

Meanwhile, all of this can be solved by placing parentheses/brackets/etc.  Not to mention that the only places order of operations matters is:

Grade school math;
Stupid problems like these.

This is because the order of operations generally matters only for pure arithmetic; as soon as variables are introduced, the ambiguity tends to disappear.  The only place I can think of in real life that needs this sort of thing was invoices, as described above, but those are calculated with a line-by-line notation anyway for obvious reasons.  (OK, another example is calculating molar mass of a compound, which also is generally done line-by-line and order of operations is obvious.)

[Grujah]

Order of operations seems like such a silly thing.  It isn't a property intrinsic to the number system, but just a set of rules for interpreting our chosen method of expressing numbers and operations.  There's no particular reason multiplication has to come before addition, just convention.

Multiplication coming before addition is more objectively better than the reverse than Fahrenheit is objectively better than Celsius.

Except for the fact that Celsius is objectively better than Fahrenheit, I absolutely agree.

Of course, its a no-brainer like metric vs imperial.

[Kuildeous]

I never learned the acronym for PEDMAS (or its variants), but I have seen how it's been misused. The problem with PEDMAS is that it can be interpreted to mean that you divide before you multiply and that you add before you subtract, when those operator pairs are equal in priority (and should therefore be done left to right).

For example, we have:
8-6+4=?

If you literally read PEDMAS as doing addition first, then you conclude the answer is -2. But since addition and subtraction have the same priority, you go from left to right, so the answer is actually 6.

Instead of learning PEDMAS, I just learned that the operators were grouped together, which makes sense, since subtraction is just addition and division is just multiplication. I just learned that multiplication happens before addition. Then we learned parentheses. Exponents would have come later. By the time I got to that point, we had known the order of operations.

I wouldn't teach PEDMAS if I were in a classroom. From what it sounds like, it's fairly ubiquitous, so I guess I'd be doing a disservice by ignoring the acronym. I would definitely teach it as PE(DM)(AS). Maybe use colors PEDMAS. It was actually one of those annoying trolling equations where I saw someone claim an entirely different answer because she used PEDMAS incorrectly, so now I'm wary of that tool.

[Kuildeous]

If the Oxford comma eliminates confusion, use it.
If the Oxford comma introduces confusion, don't use it.
If it doesn't matter either way, why use it?

In the third case I usually leave it out, though sometimes I use it if it "sounds" better.

I agree with the first two points, though I'm at a loss when trying to think of examples where a serial comma would add confusion. If such a thing exists, I would imagine that semicolons would help out.

As for the third case, I'm a strong proponent of consistency. If it doesn't matter then why use it? Because it's very likely that elsewhere in the document, it has been used in order to eliminate confusion, and that inconsistency can be distracting.

I always use a serial comma, even if it's not needed to eliminate confusion. It doesn't hurt anything, and it delineate s the items in crisp, clean fashion.

[Ozle]

Good job its not : Parenthesis, Exponents, Division, Operations.

[eHalcyon]

If the Oxford comma eliminates confusion, use it.
If the Oxford comma introduces confusion, don't use it.
If it doesn't matter either way, why use it?

In the third case I usually leave it out, though sometimes I use it if it "sounds" better.

I agree with the first two points, though I'm at a loss when trying to think of examples where a serial comma would add confusion. If such a thing exists, I would imagine that semicolons would help out.

As for the third case, I'm a strong proponent of consistency. If it doesn't matter then why use it? Because it's very likely that elsewhere in the document, it has been used in order to eliminate confusion, and that inconsistency can be distracting.

I always use a serial comma, even if it's not needed to eliminate confusion. It doesn't hurt anything, and it delineate s the items in crisp, clean fashion.

The Wikipedia article has good discussion on this.  Here is their example for where it introduces ambiguity:

To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God

In this sentence, is Ayn Rand a third party, or is Ayn Rand the speaker's mother?  Removing the Oxford comma removes that ambiguity.

Consistency is great, but since removing the comma is sometimes necessary to reduce ambiguity, you'll have some inconsistencies either way.  This is why I don't take a hard-line "you must" or "you must not" on the issue, though I dislike it when people argue vehemently that the Oxford comma is never wrong.

[Ozle]

If the Oxford comma eliminates confusion, use it.
If the Oxford comma introduces confusion, don't use it.
If it doesn't matter either way, why use it?

In the third case I usually leave it out, though sometimes I use it if it "sounds" better.

I agree with the first two points, though I'm at a loss when trying to think of examples where a serial comma would add confusion. If such a thing exists, I would imagine that semicolons would help out.

As for the third case, I'm a strong proponent of consistency. If it doesn't matter then why use it? Because it's very likely that elsewhere in the document, it has been used in order to eliminate confusion, and that inconsistency can be distracting.

I always use a serial comma, even if it's not needed to eliminate confusion. It doesn't hurt anything, and it delineate s the items in crisp, clean fashion.

The Wikipedia article has good discussion on this.  Here is their example for where it introduces ambiguity:

To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God

In this sentence, is Ayn Rand a third party, or is Ayn Rand the speaker's mother?  Removing the Oxford comma removes that ambiguity.

Consistency is great, but since removing the comma is sometimes necessary to reduce ambiguity, you'll have some inconsistencies either way.  This is why I don't take a hard-line "you must" or "you must not" on the issue, though I dislike it when people argue vehemently that the Oxford comma is never wrong.

Really?
I have always used that double comment to indicate the name of someone. So when you put that I read the italiscised as the mothers name is Ayn Rand always. If you took out the second comma then it would become three people to me.

[theory]

Ozle: Ah, yes, but if you altered it slightly:

To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God

Now the sentence is ambiguous unless the Oxford comma is present.

[theory]

Order of operations seems like such a silly thing.  It isn't a property intrinsic to the number system, but just a set of rules for interpreting our chosen method of expressing numbers and operations.  There's no particular reason multiplication has to come before addition, just convention.

Multiplication coming before addition is more objectively better than the reverse than Fahrenheit is objectively better than Celsius.

Except for the fact that Celsius is objectively better than Fahrenheit, I absolutely agree.

I believe WW was referring to this discussion from earlier.

[Ozle]

Ozle: Ah, yes, but if you altered it slightly:

To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God

Now the sentence is ambiguous unless the Oxford comma is present.

Thats a better example

[theory]

Ozle: Ah, yes, but if you altered it slightly:

To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God

Now the sentence is ambiguous unless the Oxford comma is present.

Thats a better example

eHalcyon's point is that sometimes the Oxford comma introduces ambiguity:

To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God

And sometimes it gets rid of ambiguity:

To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God

So regardless of whether you use the Oxford comma, you're always going to have ambiguity.

Perhaps a better example is this:

To my audience, Ozle, and eHalcyon

No matter whether that comma is there or not, you are going to be ambiguous.  Do I mean "audience", "Ozle", and "eHalcyon", or do I mean "audience consisting of Ozle" and "eHalcyon", or do I mean "audience consisting of Ozle and eHalcyon"?

[Ozle]

"To my audience, Ozle, and eHalcyon"

Except I would always read that as Ozle being the audience.

Whereas:

"To my audience, Ozle and eHalcyon"
That to me reads three seperate things.

Obviously I dont follow the rules of English grammar properly, but thats how I have always done it, and thats how I write.

[Kuildeous]

To my audience, Ozle, and eHalcyon

No matter whether that comma is there or not, you are going to be ambiguous.  Do I mean "audience", "Ozle", and "eHalcyon", or do I mean "audience consisting of Ozle" and "eHalcyon", or do I mean "audience consisting of Ozle and eHalcyon"?

The easy fix for that is to remove the ambiguity entirely.

To eHalcyon and my audience, Ozle.

Sometimes, the onus lies on the writer to ensure that punctuation is used as assistance and not as a detriment.

Of course, if you're transcribing, then you're on your own. Good luck.