mkkmypet: 4x^2 is not the same thing as -x^2 at all. The former is multiplication, the later is negation, they're two completely different things. And everyone who thinks of rationalizing that logic by saying that it's the same thing because you can negate something by multiplying by -1, keep in mind that you can't just magically change -4^2 to -1*4^2. If it was as simple as that, the votes in this poll would be much more in favor to -16. If people are asked that what -1*4^2 is, many more people would say -16 instead of 16. Using my former example, if you could do that, then you could as well use any expression that results in -4 to replace it in the equation. -2*2 is same as -4, but -2*2^2 sure as hell is not -16. You can't just replace -4 magically with -1*4 without properly adding parenthesis around it just because it happens to give the right result. If you want to break it to smaller parts (called expanding), you
need to add parenthesis, otherwise you're breaking the rules of mathematics. Just because it
happens to give the right result, doesn't mean it's the right way to do it.
whenever you say 95% OF PEOPLE DONT KNOW PEMDAS RAMI... you are including people's parents and shit who haven't been in school for years and use math for tips. it's not as excusable when you're in your low twenties. everyone at gw should know order of operations man. I know thats bourgeosie as fuck but come on.
Yeah I guess it was bit too much to say everyone, because it includes all those africans that never went to school, but you know exactly what I meant. I meant educated people, such as the people who visit this forum. And it's not that easy to forget these very basic rules of maths. Most people need maths in their daily life, at least from my experience. Let it be calculating some sort of a budget, or taxes, or whatever. I am not talking about some native Indians here, which apparently some people think I'm referring to. I'm talking about people who were at some point of time taught this. Just because you don't know what pemdas or bodmas or whatever acronym means, doesn't mean you don't know about what they refer to (because in this case you almost definitely do).
