Math wiz kid needed to settle a dispute.

Re:
50 + 50 x 0 + 1=?

What is your answer and please show your work.
Thanks
Pawn

There's a traditional order of operations:

quote:

Do operations in parentheses and other grouping symbols first. If there are grouping symbols within other grouping symbols do the innermost first.
Do multiplication and division operations from left to right.
Do addition and subtraction operations from left to right

Source:
http://www.aaamath.com/pro73cx2.htm

Your example has no grouping symbols, so the calculation is
50 + 50 x 0 + 1=50+0+1=51
since you do the multiplication before the addition.

Jeff

Jeff,
I got 101. Looks like I forgot what I learned over 50 years ago.
Would you like to explain it to some other dumb cow pokes.
Go: http://ranchers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54840
Thanks
Sir Loin
edit
50 + 50 x 0 + 1=?
( 50 + 50 ) = 100
100 (X 0 ) = 100
( + 1 ) = 101

If you think of apples you will always get the correct answer.
50 apples plus 50 apples = 100 apples, apples are not “nothings”.
100 apples times 0 = 100 apples (you sill have 100 apples)
100 apples plus one apple = 101 apples

But then I only ever took basic algebra! ?????????????

Anything times zero is zero.

If there are no parentheses grouping the items, you always do the calculations left to right, doing all the multiplications/divisions first, then the addition/subtractions.

50 + 50 x 0 + 1=50 + (50x0) + 1=50 +0+1=51

It isn't algebra. It's arithmetic.

anything times 0 being 0 is why you can't divide by zero, since that's undefined.

Jeff/CompGuy

Jeff,
Check this out from another poster.

quote:

I just forwarded this to a friend that is a high school math teacher. Hopefully we will get the answer soon.


Well that was futile , he gave me 1 ,51 and 100 as his final answer

Pawn,
This is the simplest way I can show the calculation:
50 + 50 x 0 + 1=?
50 + (50 x 0) + 1=?
     Note: Any number x 0 = 0, so
50 + 0 + 1 = 51

Again, the convention (see the link I gave) is to do the multiplications/divisions first, left to right, and then the additions/subtractions, left to right.

That's the rule. If you know the rule, there's no ambiguity. If you don't know the rule, you don't know in which order to perform the calculations, so there are different ways to interpret the equation.

But the rule is part of the notation of arithmetic, explaining how to calculate the various operations involved. So there IS no ambiguity ultimately.

There's a pretty good description (with the history of the rule) here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations

Jeff/CompGuy