It’s one thing to argue about politics on the Internet, but it takes a special kind of person to get invested in an argument about math.

Take, for example, the way one tricky math problem was posed:

“Only 1 in 1,000,000 people can solve this simple equation.”

It’s intentionally antagonistic.

Whoever said “math is fun” never met the people who got into countless arguments over a tricky equation. In fact, it’s anything but simple.

Even people with mathematics degrees managed to disagree over the answer to:

8 ÷ 2 (2+2) = ?

Here’s why people are getting all bunched up: there are very few things in the world with correct answers. Most of life is not black and white – but we were always taught that math is.

Math is supposed to be something we could rely on to have only one right answer.

But that’s simply not true – and it’s boggling people’s minds.

There are two camps when it comes to the so-called “correct” answer: those who “know” the answer is 1, and those who stake their reputation on the answer being 16.

And they’re not above insulting complete strangers.

If you’ve ever argued with someone on the Internet, you know it’s an entirely fruitless endeavor. But what can we say? People are bored and they need to be know-it-alls.

The first people to try and prove that they were the real math warriors were those whose weapons were calculators. Surely this objective math machine would produce the One True Answer!

Except they didn’t.

After the calculator crusaders came those who explained that it’s the person not the machine that’s the problem.

Shockingly, more bickering failed to resolve anything.

Surely the people who act like it’s their job to tell people on the Internet they’re wrong should weigh in. That always helps!

You know, except when it doesn’t (which is always).

In the least shocking turn of events, pure anger failed to resolve the argument.

Another thing humans are bad at? Learning from the past.

In 2013, there was another, similar equation that caused people to reach for each other’s throats: 6 ÷ 2 (1+2) = ?

The website Slate even tried to address why we get so riled up about these things. They consulted a social psychologist who explained that a couple of things go into making arithmetic into a life or death battle.

First, social media has – sadly – become a place where we expect to argue, so we do, no matter how low the stakes. In addition, people tend to get wrapped up in these games because they think it provides them an opportunity to show how smart they are.

At the end of the day, these problems are compelling because they give us a reason to try and feel superior.

It’s actually kind of pathetic.

Have you ever come away from an Internet argument thinking someone was really brilliant?

So why do we argue about these pointless problems endlessly instead of doing something more important? One reason is psychological, the other mathematical.

First, we feel embarrassed when we’re wrong, especially in front of people we know, so we’ll often double down on our own opinions and answers (even after they’ve become indefensible). It would apparently be too humiliating to say “sorry, I was wrong,” so we just don’t.

Perhaps more tellingly, we think of math (incorrectly) as lacking any ambiguity. But the truth is there’s plenty of ambiguity in both math and science – that’s why people still do research in these areas!

In the case of these equations, it’s all about the way the problem is expressed. You can “read” them in different ways.

Some of us were taught the “order of operations” rule in elementary school: “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally,” or PEMDAS, which stands for Parentheses Exponents Multiplication Division Addition Subtraction.

If you use PEMDAS on the original equation, the answer is 1.

Except PEMDAS is not a mathematical law, it’s a convention – one that mathematicians argue about whether or not to use in every case.

2+2=4 is a universal truth, but the answer to 8 ÷ 2(2+2) = ? depends on how you choose to solve it.

While everyone agrees that the 2+2 in parentheses should be calculated first, they disagree over whether the division or multiplication comes next.

If you think the division comes first because you’re following the convention of working left to right, you get 16. If you choose the multiplication first, you get 1.

In other words, the equation only has a clear-cut answer if we all agree to use the same convention to solve it. And even the pros don’t always agree!

But let’s be honest here, the problem is written the way that it is specifically to cause this kind of controversy.

One thing all mathematicians agree on is that under no practical circumstances would they ever write an equation this way.

In a New York Times op-ed, Steven Strogatz, a professor of mathematics at Cornell said:

“No professional mathematician would ever write something so obviously ambiguous. We would insert parentheses to indicate our meaning and to signal whether the division should be carried out first, or the multiplication.”

So neither answer is ridiculous or proves any innate intelligence or superior schooling.

This whole kerfuffle only proves that the world we’ve built ourselves has robbed us of any appreciation for ambiguity or acceptance of other ways of thinking.

Then again, if you MUST know how to solve it by the most common standard convention, then you need to work from left to right, which means division goes first and the answer is 16.

But don’t sweat it. Find something better to do with your energy.

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Source: Bored Panda, Slate, The New York Times