Possible Duplicate:
What is 48÷2(9+3)?
Sorry if this has already been asked, my searches were fruitless...
There's been a buzz lately about the different results given by two different Casio brand calculators for the same expression. It would seem that there's debate on this issue.
The expression is thus:
6 ${\div}$ 2 (1 + 2)
It would appear that the debate is between the scope of the division operator in the equation. Now, as a software developer, I'm accustomed to well-defined operator precedence. The compiler knows exactly in what order terms will be evaluated. Thus, above, the answer is 9.
However, it would appear that the two calculators differ because there's debate about that division operator regarding whether it divides the entire expression or only the first two terms. Rather, is it:
(6 ${\div}$ 2) (1 + 2)
or is it:
(6) ${\div}$ (2 (1 + 2))
Is there an official answer regarding the operator precedence for mathematics in general, outside the realm of computer programming and compilers?