Order of Operations Ambiguity Causes Social Media Stir

Writing for Slate, Tara Haelle attributes the vitriol evident in arithmetic-related comment threads to, in part, the ambiguity of mathematical notation.

Haelle discusses the issue in the context of the expression 6 ÷ 2(1+2), noting that it simplifies differently depending on the convention observed. 

In a story that draws on textbook history and defines terms foreign to many a math major—who knew that the word for the ÷ symbol was obelus?—Haelle even sneaks in some commentary on mathematics education in America. She quotes Pitzer College historian of mathematics Judy Grabiner:

The major deficit in U.S. math education is that people think math is about calculation and formulas and getting the one right answer, rather than being about exciting ideas that cut across all sorts of intellectual categories, clear and logical thinking, the power of abstraction and a language that lets you solve problems you've never seen before.

Read Haelle's article.