People love to debate things but not everything is up for debate. This includes math problems because they usually have a very straightforward answer.
The math problem we have for you here was posted in 2019 on Twitter and it ended up being very controversial. The problem itself was rather straightforward but people began debating on their answers, right or wrong.
This leaves us wondering, are you able to solve the problem yourself? More than likely, you will come up with an answer but is the answer correct?
There was actually enough of a debate on the subject and enough traction that it got the attention of the editors of Popular Mechanics. They were also split on the answer to the problem so they decided to take it to their official workplace.
The editors went over the problem and debated it so that they could come up with the proper solution. In the end, they did something that an eighth grader could probably do but someone in their 30s would have a struggle.
They used a mathematical principal known as PEMDAS. That acronym stands for, parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. In other words, it gives you the order of operations as to how you solve a math problem. In this case, it wasn’t solved from right to left.
The 2+2 inside of the parentheses got solved first. That leaves you with the equation, 8÷2×4
Next up, you would have to solve the problem on the left. Multiplication and division are on equal grounds as far as which gets solved first, so you would start working the problem from left to right. This leaves you with the equation, 4×4
In other words, the answer is 16!
Then again, there were other people who debated the subject, saying that you would have to do the division before you do the multiplication according to the very strict interpretation of PEMDAS.
I guess this one will just continue to be debated but for right now, 16 is the correct answer. We’re just waiting for a genius mathematician to come forward and prove us wrong.