Yeah, at some point I guess Casio switched to a concatenation-before-multiplication scheme. This plays out with the Classpad (sorry for the blurry picture):
http://imgur.com/q8ZruWi
I respect the way the TI-89 deals with it:
http://imgur.com/14Nx8oQ
But I tend to agree with the way Wolfram does it:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=m%2Fm%28m%29
This does remind me, though, of the way we use units in expressions. For example, we wouldn't want our students to simplify the expression 6 ft^2 and get 36 ft^2, since only the units are being squared. However, we seem ok with simplifying the expression 10 ft / 5 ft and getting an answer of 2 (as opposed to 2 ft^2). So, we seem to prefer concatenation in some situations involving units, but the rule isn't exactly clear.
Yeah, at some point I guess Casio switched to a concatenation-before-multiplication scheme. This plays out with the Classpad (sorry for the blurry picture):
ReplyDeletehttp://imgur.com/q8ZruWi
I respect the way the TI-89 deals with it:
http://imgur.com/14Nx8oQ
But I tend to agree with the way Wolfram does it:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=m%2Fm%28m%29
This does remind me, though, of the way we use units in expressions. For example, we wouldn't want our students to simplify the expression 6 ft^2 and get 36 ft^2, since only the units are being squared. However, we seem ok with simplifying the expression 10 ft / 5 ft and getting an answer of 2 (as opposed to 2 ft^2). So, we seem to prefer concatenation in some situations involving units, but the rule isn't exactly clear.
What do you think?
I'll pick up these two images later when I get home and add them to the post ... my school blocks imgur.com as "adult". -- Curmudgeon
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