Basic maths question.

[kinboshi]

fruitchat.co.uk

With all the talk about coconuts and pineapples, sounds just like blonde...

[millidonk]

interestingly, I posted this on a cage fighting forum, a fruit machine players forum and here.
Obviously poker players did best, but Cage fighters did much better than slotters.

link? i go into laddies and play trailblazers most days. Have always thought i was decent on fruities but i bet there is a million things i don't know. I only play them with money i am not bothered about and actually just enjoy playing them. Any tips or avoid all together?

Really?

decent obv = reasonably know what im doing.

[kinboshi]

interestingly, I posted this on a cage fighting forum, a fruit machine players forum and here.
Obviously poker players did best, but Cage fighters did much better than slotters.

link? i go into laddies and play trailblazers most days. Have always thought i was decent on fruities but i bet there is a million things i don't know. I only play them with money i am not bothered about and actually just enjoy playing them. Any tips or avoid all together?

Really?

decent obv = reasonably know what im doing.

Me too, I never play them.

[mondatoo]

Fruit Machine forum = gg blonde

Bye everyone

Haha.

[gatso]

how are so many people getting the wrong answer? there's 2 threads not only explaining it but actually telling you the answer

[Laxie]

how are so many people getting the wrong answer? there's 2 threads not only explaining it but actually telling you the answer

'cause we think yer line on it is BS.  plus I'm doing what mond told me to do and sticking to me guns.

[kinboshi]

how are so many people getting the wrong answer? there's 2 threads not only explaining it but actually telling you the answer

'cause we think yer line on it is BS.  plus I'm doing what mond told me to do and sticking to me guns.

What?  This isn't a debate based on opinion.  The answer is 41, there isn't an 'alternative' answer, except the wrong one.

http://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/vol7/order_operations.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations

http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/book8/bk8i4/bk8_4i3.htm

[gatso]

it's the most basic level of arithmetic. denying it is no different from claiming that 2+2=4 is bs

[Laxie]

.

[kinboshi]

.

I bet other primates could answer it correctly too.

[Ironside]

I am sure we learnt this in the first few years of primary school just after we learnt the times tables

[mondatoo]

Haha Laxie, I blame the alcohol for my demise.

[Cf]

Fruit Machine forum = gg blonde

Bye everyone

Haha.

Where do you think I spend most of my time these days?

(Not on that one tho - i don't like it)

[BrumBilly]

Not ashamed to say I got this WRONG...I simply don't know the rules of operation...maths was never my thing at school and never paid attention so won't blame my teachers, they must've shown me at some point, it just failed to sink in...so at 39 I've learned somethin pretty fundamental!!! Funny how we can be pretty advanced in some fields and entirely remedial in others....Da Vinci must've been some bloke!

[gatso]

ok, for those who still aren't getting the reasoning behind this I've just seen a fantastic explanation on the charltonlife footy forum. if you're still claiming the answer isn't 41 after this then I just give up

Just in case anyone's wondering why we do multiplication before addition, one explanation is that it's because of algebraic notation. Algebra helps to shorten mathematical sentences. For example, if you have 5 apples and 3 bananas, you could call that "5a + 3b". Now bear in mind that the expression "5a" actually means "5 x a" (or "apple" multiplied by 5 if you like), so the whole expression really means "5 x a + 3 x b". Now, if you did these operations (adding, multiplying etc) from left to right, you would get, after each stage, running totals of; "5a", then "5a +3", then a final answer of "5ab +3b". Unfortunately, the "5ab" part doesn't make sense, because there is no such thing as "five applebananas". Everybody, whether mathematically minded or not, understands that if you say "I've got 5 apples and 3 bananas, you mean "five lots of apples PLUS 3 lots of bananas". This statement is translated mathematically as:
"5 x a + 3 x b"
and the multiplications are carried out first, the additions last.
Mathematicians realised centuries ago that algebraic notation required multiplying to be carried out before adding and decided that there should be standard rules of precedence in operations when performing arithmetic. It was a natural decision to make multiplication take precedence over addition because it is consistent with algebraic notation and therefore less confusing(!!!)

Now, if you consider the following situation:
A person is given 42 scratchcards. He wins £40 on the first one, he then loses the next 40, then he wins £1 on the last one. How much money has he won altogether?
Clearly, he has used all 42 scratchcards and his total winnings are £41. (1 lot of 40, 40 lots of 0 and 1 lot of 1)
Now in order to write this down algebraically, you could consider the letters f, z and o to represent occasions where he won forty, zero or one pound respectively.
This then becomes:
1f + 40z + 1o
but we don't need the "1" in front of f and o, so it simplifies to:
f + 40z + o
but now, putting the values of f =40, z = 0 and o = 1 into the expression gives:

40 + 40 x 0 + 1

which was the question posed in the original post.
The introduction of algebra to this situation may seem like it's making it even more complicated, but it's the best way I can think of to illustrate the reason why the answer can only be 41.