Too often, we find puzzles, news, and research that is unfortunately designed to be misleading. I mentioned months ago that I was going to start a blog, and my first post would be to explain how to solve a math problem. It was something I picked up when shared from David Wolfe and was supposed to be an order of operations problem.
It seemed straightforward enough. Follow PEMDAS and you’ll get the answer, right?
6/2(1+2)=
There is something inherently problematic in this. There are two right answers.
When I first looked at it, I got 1, but 9 is an equally valid answer.
You can follow PEMDAS and get either of the above, depending on how you approach the problem.
The parentheses get solved first, obviously, so we simplify to 6/2*3.
The order of operations does not dictate solving left to right (I researched it, and found no such rule), so from this point, you could simplify to either 6/6=1 or 3*3=9.
The problem was rigged from the beginning so that there could be no consensus on the correct answer. The equation was put out there for the purpose of being misleading. It wasn’t interested in getting the answer, nor in determining who was smart enough to figure it out. It was trolling.
In the age of the internet, where anyone can write anything, we have to be careful about how we approach everything. News is often more sensational than the truth would be, and biases are so prevalent from every side that you practically have to have multiple sources to get the truth out of nearly every report; better still if you use sources that contradict each other in fact and in perspective. At least then you can see what they have in common and determine if there are mitigating factors or additional facts.
Sometimes, the news is as bad as it sounds. The water in Flint, Michigan was not only toxic, but the government covered it up for months. Real crap really happens. Just do yourself and the world a favor and fact check before sharing. Share the truth, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Just be careful that what you are sharing is, in fact, the truth, and don’t be afraid to dig into sources that don’t agree with you. They are some of the best resources we have.