[Edu-sig] Order of operations confusion

[Laura Creighton]

In a message of Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:51:40 MST, Charles Cossé writes:

>So, the equation we were dealing with was something like:
>82+b*c-51=d-13, and the thing that surprised me was that he didn't
>think it was legal to take 82-51 before having dealt with the b*c term

I suspect that he thinks your notation is sloppy, and you should have
written this as 82 + (b * c) - 51 

The interesting question (to me at least) is whether he would be willing
to rewrite a + b + c  as a + c + b

and then if he would be willing to rewrite
a + b as a - (-b)

Can you ask him?  How old is he, anyway?

Laura