Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Carlton
... I'd like to hear the argument for the lack of parentheses...........
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From the link I posted eariler:
"When we're working with variables, if we see -x^2, we interpret it in
the second way, as -(x^2), because squaring (or any exponentiation)
takes precedence over negation (or any multiplication; -x is treated
as -1*x.
When you have numbers only, as in -9^2, it's not at all clear that we
should treat it differently from -x^2. However, some will argue that
it should, because -9 represents a single number, not an operation on
a number. Thus, some will interpret -9^2 as (-9)^2, while others will
read it as -(9^2)."
This seems a question begging for resolution, perhaps if we could establish some rules for math we could move on and focus our efforts on world peace.