A key part—though surely not the only part—of early-grades math is ensuring students get the basic arithmetic functions down and, beyond that, making sure they’re able to swiftly and automatically ...

Everyone agreed on the first step: Solve inside the parentheses, for 2+2=4. But after that, people split down two paths. Some multiplied first, while others divided, leading to different answers—1 and ...

Artificial intelligence systems can write software and reason through complex problems. Yet even basic arithmetic can expose ...

The answer could be 1 or it could be 16, or it could be both. There are two problems, according to the computer science professor: the order and the obelus. An obelus is this: ÷ and it has a variety ...

Mathematics is a fundamental part of anyone's elementary and high school education. Students are taught from an early age how to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers to solve equations. But for ...

This summer, battle lines were drawn over a simple math problem: 8 ÷ 2(2 + 2) = ? If you divide 8 by 2 first, you get 16, but if you multiply 2 by (2 + 2) first, you get 1. So, which answer is right?

I’ve been out of school a long time (I mean a long time), yet I think I’m still pretty good at basic math. I’m always able to figure out whether a “bargain buy” at the supermarket is actually a ...