Real world applications to PEMDAS/GEMDAS puzzles

Question

So I’ve recently had a thought after viewing the latest craze of asking weird questions on social media; how do these math puzzles relate to the real world? For instance, take the phrase 8 / 2 (2 + 2). By my understanding, this equals 1, due to grouping symbols being evaluated first - feel free to correct me if wrong. But what I’m asking is, how is this represented irl? I.e, in the form of, Steve has 8 apples…etc. Currently it just seems like a debate over rulesets, and I just wanted to know if there was any intrinsic meaning behind it. Thanks!

Edit: I am fool, this is actually equal to 16. My question still stands tho

Answer 1

PEDMAS is a rudimentary computation system meant to make sure 6th graders can follow basic rules, before they have to follow a more complex mathematical language in high school.

Note that PEDMAS applies to *expressions*, not *problems*. You can't give me a word problem that is already PEDMAS ready, it has to be a cut and dry calculation.

There is no debate over rulesets. The method just isn't taught the same everywhere. For example, some people were taught PEMDAS.

Answer 2

PEMDAS is just a grammar rule for math.

It's like if social media makes this question viral: "'man bit dog', who's injured?". Well, the answer is that English grammar makes subject come before object, so the dog is injured. What's an application of knowing English grammar? The application is that you can communicate with people without being misunderstood, or without misunderstanding what other people say. That's it. It's a "puzzle" to test if you know English grammar, so there are no inherent real life interpretation of it.

Answer 3

As you've typed it, that's equal to 16, not 1

Answer 4

It's only used in schools and those stupid ragebait social media posts

If you ever need to do actual math you always make everything as unambiguous as possible. For example, in papers you'll never find a "/" sign denoting standard division