SmartmanApps, (edited )
@SmartmanApps@programming.dev avatar

the order of operations is based on consensus and that any order could be used

No, as per example I gave, if you changed the order to addition first, you get a different answer (20 instead of 14), therefore demonstrably you can’t use a different order of operations. You can only have a different order if you have different definitions of the operators to begin with… and again the order of operations would be derived from what definitions you used in that case.

I still think this claim is true

So you didn’t understand the proof then.

your rationale is probably the basis for the current order of operations that we use

It’s not my rationale - it’s a mathematical proof. We started with 14. We therefore know any rules we make have to end up back at 14. Any rules which don’t lead you back to 14 are demonstrably wrong and ruled out. That is the whole purpose of the rules of Maths in the first place - there is only 1 correct answer, and we have to have rules which can only give you that 1 answer when you follow them. It’s the same thing the original authors of the order of operations would’ve done. There’s no “consensus”, there’s just a Mathematician doing Maths and arriving at the rules which work. Then tells others what they are so that they don’t have to go through working it out themselves (though some might if they want to confirm that what they’ve been told is correct. As I said, that’s the beauty of Maths - you can do the Maths yourself and confirm that what you’ve been told is correct, like I just did).

But it doesn’t prevent us from using any other order of operations.

Of course it does. If you try using a different order of operations you no longer get 14 (as demonstrated when we do addition before multiplication with our current operator definitions).

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