48÷2(9+3) = ?

It is definitely 2 though. And how can you say the distributive law has nothing to do with this!?. Your argument that the distributive law is irrelavent is flawed. You say you can "argue that we distribute multiplication by 48÷2 over the (9+3) bracket". However, you cannot do this. The distributive law only applies to multiplications not divisions/(fractions). Therefore as soon as you split up any term from the 2(9+3) you have broken the distributive law of multiplication.

Rubbish arguement is rubbish.
You've just showed that it can go either way due to interpretation.

Rubbish arguement is rubbish.
You've just showed that it can go either way due to interpretation.

i think you'll find that's not what he's done!
also it seems he(/she) knows a lot more about maths than a LOT of people on this forum who may well lose marks in future examinations if they insist on religiously sticking to the laws of BIDMAS haha.

the question may be crap, but there's still only one right answer. 2.

Brackets means what's inside the brackets and multiplying the brackets.

Yeah, but there are no brackets around the 2 and the (9+3) so you don't have to work it out as 48 ÷ [2(9+3)] = 2.

you were doing aight up till the 48/2(12) then i think you dont understand what that means it looks like this on paper :

48
-----------
2(12)

which then turns into

48
----------
24

which is 2 erm if u want to go into fractions simplify it lol which would get u

4
----------
2

which in a form that u may understand is the same as

4 ÷ 2 = 2

lol =/

But by saying 2, you are ASSUMING that the 2 is on the "bottom line" of the fraction. That is not stated in the question.

We have no other information to go on, except the badly phrased question. We therefore just have to use BIDMAS from left to right. As division and multiplication are equal, we just do division first as it's on the left.

And can you PLEASE stop saying certain people are right because they "know more maths". Lots of people who are good at maths have expressed how both answers could be correct.

it's to do with whether the bracket is on the numerator or denominator

The reason it "could" be equal to either depends on whether the (9+3) is on the numerator or denominator. If this problem were to be interpreted by a computer [EDIT: most computers, depending on whether the programmers have made concessions precisely for this issue], then because computers follow BIDMAS pretty much accurately, what they'll see is:

48÷2×(9+3)

And because of the lack of bracket around 2×(9+3), the computer will interpret this as "take 48, divide it by 2, and then multiply what you get by 9+3", giving the answer 288. This is because, as far as a computer is concerned, "÷2" is the same as "×(1/2)" and then all the multiplications are done sequentially, so you get 48×(1/2)×(9+3).

However, because we're humans, we might think that the (9+3) lies on the denominator of the fraction, in which case what we do is "take 48, work out 2×(9+3) and then divide 48 by that", giving the answer 2. Alternatively, we might think in the same way as the computer, which is how this whole silly debate started.

Personally I think the notation is ambiguous. It's unclear whether the 9+3 should be on the numerator or denominator, and whatever the implicit prescribed rules for this sort of thing are, you could forgive anyone for making a notational error.

However these threads do illustrate why LaTeX is a good idea; far too often people don't make it clear what's on a numerator or denominator, e.g. when people write, say, 1+x/3+x, they might have meant $\frac{1+x}{3+x}$ or $1 + \frac{x}{3} + x$ or a number of other things, and whether they got the notation right or wrong makes no difference to what they meant. So I think future reference to this thread for such people is probably the only good thing to come out of all this.

Sigh. The maths forum is usually so nice.

EDIT: This post might also be useful for:

I agree that It's to do with whether the bracket is on the numerator or the denominator. And the law of distribution clearly states you cannot split the (2(9+3)). You have to consider this as an unbreakable entity. Therefore, the bracket is on the denominator. so the problem is 48/(2((+3)). The second pair of brackets is implied by the law of distribution and the answer is 2

That's not quite as debatable (as it were) because that has a well-defined answer (7), and writing 1+2x3 is different to pushing [1] [+] [2] [×] [3] on a calculator, the latter of which, on MS Calc at least, is another way of finding (1+2)×3 (since the way it works is to move from left to right regardless of what operations you use). On the other hand, a string of minus or division signs does introduce ambiguity, depending on whether or not you buy the 'left to right' rule, which I certainly don't.